The Left Hand of Odin
by Bjanik
Summary: Where's a loner to go after saving the Planet? You can run Vincent, but you can't hide from what you are. A hero's work is never done.
1. Troubled Mind

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy or Vincent. But I am putting thoughts into his head.

**A/N: Vincent disappeared between FFVII and Advent Children, and I've never been satisfied with the idea that he was lurking in Lucrecia's cave the whole time. Mosty because it's boring. I expect he wandered, as many a wounded soul does. New setting and a bunch of OCs, but he'll rejoin Cloud and the gang before the end.**

cccccccccccccc

"**I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind"**

-Brad Arnold, 3 Doors Down

The man walked along the edge of the narrow street, wrapped tightly in his own thoughts and yet, in some separate part of his consciousness, peripherally aware of the physical world through which he moved. His obvious self-absorption freed the curious from averting their eyes from his odd appearance, odd even beyond the inherent oddity of being an outsider to such a rural place at the edge of the world. They couldn't know that some inadvertent part of his mind cataloged every glance toward his clothes, his pale skin, or his long ebony hair that hung heavily to the middle of his back. He prudently kept both his unnatural left appendage and his firearm concealed under his cloak, although the cloak itself was viewed scandalous enough with its bright red color and tattered edges.

Vincent Valentine didn't mind the scrutiny of the townspeople. They had nothing to do with him. And besides, what point was there to denying his role of outsider? He was completely and utterly so; an alien among his own species. It would be true in the biggest of cities- at least here in this tiny backward town of Bifröst it was acknowledged outright. It was an honesty he could appreciate.

In this isolated state of mind his long legs carried him along while his boots scuffed along the uneven stone surface of the road. His thoughts cascaded down the same well worn trenches, trenches dug from pain and guilt and sorrow, like blackened brands burned into the flesh of a farm animal. He didn't direct this obsessive ruminating; it was an automatic and constant rehashing of his life, in quadruple stereo.

He was tired, and his soul ached.

Each of the last five evenings since his arrival in this small town he had taken this trek to the end of solid ground, right to the brink of where cliff met sky and the ocean pounded below. To the very cliff that had put a stop to his wandering eastward. Over the ocean there were no known lands, nowhere farther to go, and still he had not gone far enough. It was not possible for him to go far enough. A phrase his mother had been fond of drifted through his mind: 'Wherever you go, there you are.'

How maddeningly true.

Vincent stood gazing out over the water for the better part of an hour as the sun reddened and lowered, the ragged ends of his cloak billowing out behind him on the salty breeze. Anyone else would have seated themselves onto the inviting long grasses, but it did not occur to Vincent Valentine to sit. The relief he experienced from this activity was not physical. Something about the rhythmic pounding of the waves quieted the voices in his head and their constant vying for control, until he was at last able to relax some unidentifiable mental muscle. But not without effort. Like the guy who sucks in his beer gut day after day, he gets so used to flexing those muscles that he has trouble relaxing, even when the control is no longer needed. But Vincent kept coaxing until the rigid clamp he kept on his emotional state slid to a more human level and he lifted his face skyward to let a sigh vent from his open mouth. He stayed this way for a long time, knowing that even near the ocean's waves the truce was only temporary. He let his body slip away from himself, as if it had no more to do with his true self than the people of Bifröst.

But then that body turned him, head jerking and twisting his whole frame toward the town. The event that had precipitated this perfidy was a gunshot, a unique sound that years of brutal training left Vincent Valentine unable to mistake or ignore. He moved with startling speed down the slope, mindful of the cover between himself and the center of town from where he judged the shot had come. Picking his way carefully between the buildings, he eventually spied a gathering of people in the town center. Six men stood at one end of the group, definitely not from Bifröst and definitely very rough looking. Behind them sat six high powered motorcycles.

Vincent cursed himself for his inattention. He of course had heard the whine of the bikes 10 minutes ago, but it is one thing to hear and another to be mindful enough to understand the implications. Nobody in Bifröst owned a bike with an rpm that high pitched and he knew it. At the feet of the leader of the newcomers lay a man, an older fellow who had kindly directed Vincent to the inn where he now stayed. A pool of crimson spread slowly from the head of his motionless body.

"Shit," Vincent hissed as he drew his own gun. It was a monstrosity of a thing with three barrels, long and unwieldy looking. But it was extremely accurate for a handgun, in the right hands, that was. He could easily sniper out all six before they could even get a bearing on him, but there was a problem. Several actually. The lead man had taken hold of his next victim, a small girl, and another had restrained a frantic and wailing woman who Vincent guessed was the mother. The remaining four all had guns pointed at the crowd. Vincent doubted anyone in Bifröst owned an actual gun, they were so uncommon this far out. The lead man was talking, raising his voice over the woman's unintelligible pleading. The newcomers wanted something, but he had to get a little closer to hear.

"...reasonable. Nobody else has to get hurt today." The captor pressed his barrel into the sandy blonde hair of his victim. "Just tell us where your bridge keeper is"

Tuning out the world until the entirety of existence lay in his sights, Vincent adjusted his aim to the back of the speaker's head where he had the best chance of killing the man without inducing a spasmodic trigger pull. He knew it was risky, but at the moment it seemed the best option. He was about to fire when a young woman came around the side of the crowd and squared her shoulders to the lead gunman.

"I am the Bridge Keeper," she said, her voice clear, unwavering. Vincent recognized her, but had the impression she was not a local, let alone had a position keeping a bridge. And as far as he knew Bifrost had no bridges. But he had no time to contemplate; the leader had smiled and was shifting his gun from the child to her. Several of the others were turning their weapons toward the woman as well. Now was the moment.

Vincent dropped the two foremost men with two quick shots and closed half his distance before their minds could grasp that their happy situation had gone to hell. Now the remaining four were firing while the crowd screamed and ran for cover. He was vaguely aware of the woman who had identified herself as the Bridge Keeper scooping up the crying child, who was now spattered with the blood of her short-lived captor. Now at closer range he was able to pick his targets even amid the melee, and downed the two who had the wits to figure out it that he was the source of their problem. They weren't bad shots, but they weren't very fast. One of their rounds came close to him, sizzling past his right ear even as he sank two rounds into its owner. The remaining two were already escaping on bikes. Vincent hit one square in the back, sending him off sideways in a cartwheel while the bike nosedived and tumbled in an explosion of dirt. He had a bead on the last when one of the panicked citizenry darted directly in front of him, nearly taking the bullet instead. Vincent inhaled sharply as he jerked the nose of his gun upwards. Close one. That was always the worst in these kinds of things. Unintended targets.

He scanned the field of his destruction with a cold expression that an outside observer might have been mistaken for disinterest. It wasn't that he was emotionally unaffected. It was more that he was one of the few people on the planet who truly knew the value of keeping head, and body, calm and clear. He was in face busy double-checking the scene as he internally forced his breathing to slow, letting the slow breaths do their job of calming his elevated heart rate, consciously making his shoulders relax as he holstered his weapon. Of the four in the plaza around him he had no question of his work; they would not be getting up. Of the one he shot off the bike he could not be so sure, but the downed rider appeared to be equally stilled. The crowd however was agitated. Not realizing the action was over they ran about wildly, crying, calling names of their children, looking for the Goddess knew what. Everyone except the self proclaimed Bridge Keeper. She had handed the crying child to the crying mother, and now stood staring directly at him. And now Vincent was sure that she was not a member of the Bifrost community, and therefore almost certainly not this mysterious Bridge Keeper. He thought her awful young for a woman travelling alone in these parts of the world, and had to stop and mentally check himself. Living in these rural places the past year had triggered some of his old-fashioned ideas, formed back when women were not allowed to be Turks and before he had fought to save the world alongside some fantastically adventuresome females. A traveler this woman certainly was, like himself. Her clothes were too plain, too utilitarian, lacking personalized adornments or style. They were efficient the way travel clothes should be. And her short, dark hair had been whacked off haphazardly, maybe by herself by the looks of it, nothing like the proud, smooth, long tresses of the local women. Yet she had tried to trade herself for the child.

Her demeanor was different as well. Her face wore not the widespread blankness of shock, but what he judged to be an intelligent calm. That she was able to hold his gaze at all surprised Vincent; he knew the red cast of his eyes, or maybe it was his general appearance, unnerved almost everyone. But she kept her eyes steady as she walked toward him, stepping over one of the dead without so much of a glance downward. She was outwardly completely composed, but Vincent could see her somewhat accelerated breathing moving her shoulders.

"You missed one, I think," she said, turning to squint in the direction where the last rider had disappeared.

"Maybe that's better," Vincent replied, irritated at being accosted so. "Let him report to whomever he reports that they should think twice next time."

"You think they were sent? By some criminal organization perhaps?"

"They wanted something specific. Not you," Vincent replied.

The woman turned to him with the barest curl on one side of her lips. Her face wasn't pretty in a classical way, but it had an earthy quality with warm, wide set eyes that instilled trust. With her small, somber smile of appreciation Vincent allowed his annoyance at her initial reproach to slip away.

"So, who is the Bridge Keeper?" he asked.

"I don't know. I don't even know what a Bridge Keeper is. I am a stranger here myself. My name is Serina Kusa. People call me Seri."

"I'm Vincent," he said after a long pause. "Vincent Valentine."

Her eyes showed amusement, probably from his unlikely name, but her smile remained polite. Seri put her hand out in front of her.

"We are well met, Vincent Valentine."

Vincent silently took her hand and shook it. He disliked this type of physical social contact, but decorum would hardly allow him to decline. To cover his discomfort he changed the subject.

"There might be some answers," he said, "my last target was pretty far out. He may still be alive."

ccc

A short jog later and they were both looking down at the fallen rider, lying on his back in muddy puddle of his own blood. Vincent bent down and relieved the injured man of his weapon. It was an average quality piece, not something he would normally bother with, but he pocketed it anyway. Seri pressed her sun-browned fingers along the rider's throat, her short fingernails framed by ragged cuticles.

"Well, he's alive, but barely," she pronounced.

Unlike the corpses that now lay in the street, this one at least lacked the fist sized, ragged exit wound. His distance from Vincent had saved him from that fate at least - the round was still parked inside his body. They rolled him over and with a violent jerk Vincent tore two long strips from the rider's shirt. With practiced speed he rolled one strip to form a bandage and they tied the second to hold pressure on a leaking red hole bigger than the diameter of a man's thumb in his back.

"Well he might live for a few hours," Seri said. "Gods, what caliber are you using, Valentine? You didn't leave much left of these guys."

"It's not what I do."

This time her smile cracked wide, her not-quite even features and wide nose spreading quite naturally across her face. Vincent, who seldom found anything funny and certainly not now, knit his brows at her.

"You're a pip to be sure," she said. "Here, you can have the heavy part. Grab his shoulders; I'll get his feet."

Vincent did as he was bid, wondering why he was doing it, wondering how he had gotten so involved, and wondering what a "pip" was. He plotted his disengagement. The simplest approach was usually best; he would just walk away and move on. That decided, he was free to contemplate the stranger Seri. She seemed quite at home among the carnage and gunfire. Not at all like any of the rural people he had met in the last weeks, or months, rather. Perhaps she was a battle-hardened refugee from the war? The cold look she had initially given him reminded him of a Turk. That stealthy and murderous organization had changed much in the last few years with the decline of ShinRa, and many Turks had slipped their lifelong contract to hide out in the remote corners of the world such as this. But even if she were an ex-Turk there was no chance she would have known him; his 30-year slumber after the experiments made his Turk days distant history. And that part at least suited him well enough.

The townspeople had begun to recover themselves and some were pulling the bodies of the attackers into a gruesome pile with limp arms, legs, and heads tumbled into angles the victims never would have chosen for themselves in life. Vincent suspected the citizens of Bifrost didn't have a clue what to do with their macabre pile once they had it, but were instead working on impulse while their minds eased down from the shock. Vincent recognized Sheriff Jansen coming toward them. He was a decent fellow, but in reality only a retired farmer elected as a part-time law man. His sum experience amounted to collecting truant boys or bringing home a friend and neighbor who had too much to drink at one of the three taverns in town. His broad, dinner plate-like face was compressed into confusion as he looked up at Vincent, then, finding no comfort there, he focused on Seri.

"Sheriff," she said, "I see you've collected their guns. Get someone you can trust to organize a party to haul those four out to the flats and burn them. Empty their pockets first and also take any unusual pieces of metal off their clothes. Put them in a bag for you and make sure no-one, _no-one_ hangs on to any of it. This one is still alive but we'll need him conscious if we're to get any answers out of him. We're taking him to Betty's."

The sheriff nodded, his countenance now full of grateful purpose and determination. Seri pulled forward and to the right and Vincent followed, attached as he was to her by his hold to the other end of the man they carried. Seri had given the sheriff exactly the instructions he would have, and he added another point in the positive column for his theory of her being an ex-Turk or something similar.

Vincent wasn't sure what he was expecting from "Betty", maybe harmless and wholesome, but the small house they approached looked anything but. The door was already open and expectant, and from the darkness inside a damp smell of earth and incense reached out and grabbed at them like the clawed hands of a rank and discarded beggar. Suddenly he understood. They had little or no natural materia in this region. No mako reactor to crystallize materia from the planet's mako laden Lifestream, probably no materia anywhere to heal wounds. Well, other than the little he carried, and he wasn't about to use it on this scum. Betty was then, of course, the healing witch.

ccccccccccccccccc


	2. The Witch

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy or Vincent. But I am putting thoughts into his head.

Vincent had to dip his head to pass through the door, and, once through, the light from outside was utterly extinguished. He was certain the door had not closed behind him; that if he were to stick an arm out his hand would emerge into the twilight of the evening. But that light simply did not pass inside. His unusual eyes adjusted quickly to the candlelit dimness, and across the room the visage of the hag peering intently at him gave his innards a start.

"Well," the hag crackled, "What have we here? Outsiders, all three. And one bleeding to death on my floor."

Vincent, none too gently, dropped his half of the burden, and Seri followed suit, rubbing her forearms.

"Greetings Healer," she said, "We bring an enemy of Bifröst. He is our prisoner and we hope his knowledge may be useful. But as you said, he is dying."

The old woman tipped the man up with surprising ease to peek under the blood soaked makeshift bandage on the man's back.

"I can help him, if you've got the gil. Fifty will get him to where you can do whatever you might want with him, at least for a day or so."

She peered at them through long strands of gray hair, and Vincent noticed one of her eyes was grotesquely larger than the other. He began to think of how to excuse himself. He was unsure what one says to take leave of a healing witch, and also unsure exactly where the door was now.

"Hey Vincent," Seri's voice interrupted his thoughts. "You got any gil? I'm a little short."

He looked at Seri and was momentarily fixed in place. Her eyes had caught some of the candlelight and had an odd shine like an animal's. The rest of her face stood in sharp relief of shadow and golden light and a strange feeling of familiarity moved at the edge of his memory, inches from his grasp. Unthinking he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of gil. The witch tottered over and collected the remaining four ten-gil coins she required. At the touch of her dry, bony fingers on his palm he looked down sharply to find the hag's face inches from his own. The effect was so alarming that he took a step backward.

"Interesting, aren't you?" The old woman continued to advance and Vincent was gripped by a sudden and irrational feeling of doom. The hair rose on the back of his neck, and a sensation of writhing insects began to sweep every inch of his body. A familiar heat welled up near his skin.

_No, not now. It's not a real, we're OK,_ he thought to himself to induce an urgent calm, willing himself into a strict, ordered control.

The old woman chuckled and leaned away from him, and the panicky doom left him as quickly as it had come.

"So many of you in there," she said, cackling some more.

The heat in Vincent's body rose again, this time the normal heat of anger, but he dispatched that as well. When the healer turned from him he looked up toward Seri. The strangeness to her face was replaced with a look of concern, and he barely caught the flick of something that had been in her hand disappear up her sleeve. Vincent took another step backward, and found himself rather abruptly outside.

"Oh, Mr. Valentine."

Vincent blinked once at the comparative light outside and focused on an embarrassed-looking Sheriff Jansen. The sheriff looked down, rubbed his boot in the dirt, and then found something interesting in the horizon before looking back at Vincent.

"I hate to go in there unless it's really necessary," he said finally. Now there was a sentiment Vincent could sympathize with.

"I think the lady has things under control," Vincent said.

"Oh, good!" The sheriff brightened. "Women do so much better in there anyway. I'm sorry we haven't been formally introduced. I know your name, of course. You signed the register at the inn, and everybody in this ol' gossipy watering hole of a town probably knows your name by now."

Vincent didn't answer, and his unresponsive stare was making the man fidget.

"Jan Jansen," the sheriff finally said, sticking out his hand and for the second time that day Vincent found himself having to complete the bothersome ritual of touch. And what the hell was he doing anyway? Did he really just pay forty gil to save a guy he tried to kill not twenty minutes ago? Wasn't it time to go now?

Suddenly a noise reared out of the healer's house; a scream that ended in an unnatural gurgle, a sound so chilling the sheriff took three steps back. Vincent Valentine, however, bolted forward, back through the door. Returned to the darkness the scene at first looked the same, but soon he could see there was something horribly wrong with the man on the floor. Or more specifically with his head. Where his face should have been there was only ill-defined lumps of dark and light. In some areas the masses had deeply cracked surfaces like dried clay and in other areas it appeared to be boiling. All of it was still moving, rising out from eye sockets, through the crackling, destroyed nose cartilage and the stretched open mouth, the teeth scraping grooves into the spongy material. Vincent immediately drew his weapon at the sight of it.

"No need gunslinger," the old hag said, sounding tired. "It's just the pressure pushing the rest of his brains out. He's gone."

Vincent looked over at Seri. She was streaked with blood and the lighter gray matter. What looked like a ruptured eyeball clung to her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, dearie," the old woman moved over to Seri, pinched off the eyeball, and added to a jar already half full of some dark substance. "But he had the Yeega."

"What's a Yeega?" Vincent asked.

"It's a type of seed capsule with concentrated mako fused into the brain. When it ruptures the mako expands, filling the brain with bubbles like a soda pop. The mako pushes its way out wherever it can, trying to get back to the Lifestream, carrying brain and blood and flesh with it."

"So it ruptured. Why?"

"It's set to be sensitive to certain mental conditions. In his case the divulging of secrets. I've not seen it in oh, fifty years. Not since I came to the country." The healer/witch sighed. "I am getting too old for this. Do take your prisoner with you when you go."

Seri looked dazed and maybe a little sick, and Vincent had no desire to shoulder the oozing, dead villain by himself. So he grabbed the guy's feet and dragged him out. There was now a small group of people outside, and, when the bubbling head cleared the darkness, most of them gasped and one woman screamed. Then Seri emerged with the help of two gnarled hands that shoved her out the door.

Seri blinked repeatedly, staring at nothing. Now outside Vincent could see she had bits of brain stuck in her hair, and with the blood streaking against her blanched face she was quite a fright to look at. The townspeople were slowly increasing their distance from them, their horrified gazes unable to choose between Seri and the man on the ground. Vincent inserted himself between her and the crowd and managed to get her to look at him, although her expression was still vacant. Then it occurred to him she had also gotten hit with the mako energy from the Yeega. She might even be catatonic for awhile. He took out a cloth and carefully began to wipe her face, flicking wet, fleshy chunks off her hair and clothes.

"It's OK," he said softly, "just a little mako. And a little blood. And some brains."

Her eyes slowly cleared, and she appeared to see him. Her shoulders gave a small shudder.

"Well, so much for that," she said, and for the first time in months, maybe years, Vincent Valentine smiled, ever so slightly.

ccccccccccc

"You alright Miss Kusa?" Sheriff Jansen stepped near them, bravely broaching the circle of vacancy left around them by the townspeople.

"I'm fine, sheriff. And again, please call me Seri."

"I'll try, but to use the first name of such a pretty young stranger in our town, I'd hate to have my wife hear of it." He grinned at her good naturedly, his weathered cheeks framing his face with deep furrows.

Seri gave a laugh that was more of a snort and quickly moved a self-conscious hand to cover her face, and then removed the hand as if that too made her feel conspicuous.

"I've been in your town three weeks, Jan," she replied.

"Three weeks ain't much for the likes of ourn. Oh they may like you fine, but they would have let those bastards haul you away as the Bridge Keeper like as not, rather than risk themselves for you." The sheriff reddened and lowered his gaze, remembering that he was among those not willing to risk helping.

"But poor Olef, and the little girl, why would nobody step up? Were they protecting the Bridge Keeper?"

The Sheriff's eyes shifted away toward the sea. "Can't say I know what they were talking about."

Seri glanced at Vincent and he could tell she had detected the lie.

"What happened to this guy anyway? Did he say anything?" The sheriff motioned to the bandito on the ground, changing the subject.

"His head blew up; he didn't say anything," Seri said, taking a little evil satisfaction in the wince her bluntness caused. "The old woman said it was some sort of booby-trap in his brain, triggered to go off rather than have him give up any information. I've never heard of such a thing, but I don't imagine something like that can be easy, or cheap, can it?" She looked to Vincent for verification.

"No," he answered, never taking his eyes off the Sheriff. Jansen was a fool. He needed to wake up to what he might be up against, and quick.

"The bikes too," Seri continued, apparently on the same train of thought as Vincent. "Expensive, fast. Whoever's backing these guys has got some serious gil. They'll be back, and it will be worse next time." The Sheriff turned a little green and looked at them both helplessly. Seri scanned across the heart of the small town and Vincent's eyes followed hers over the old hand-hewn buildings and their now hapless, wandering inhabitants. Unarmed. Unprepared. Beside him he heard her sigh wearily.

"You sticking around for awhile, Valentine?" She asked.

And to his own surprise, he heard himself say, "Why not?"


	3. The Shepherd

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. But I get to play with him from time to time.

Vincent and Seri started back toward the center of town together. The bodies had been removed and the cobblestones of the square nearly washed clean of blood. The townspeople had done as directed and reported the intruders carried nothing in their pockets- no bags, nothing tucked under the hem of garments, no ID, money, or tools. Not even a gum wrapper.

"So what _did_ mushrooming brains say back there?" Vincent asked without turning toward his companion.

"Well he got out one word before exploding all over me."

"Why didn't you tell the sheriff?"

"I don't trust him. You?"

"No."

He waited for her to continue. Deliberate silence was usually enough to make most people talk, the social awkwardness of it driving them to divulge all kinds of secrets. But Seri was either insensitive to the discomfort or was intentionally refusing to play that game.

"What was the word?" he finally asked.

"Asgard."

"Asgard?"

Seri looked up at him with wry smile, and scratched absently at a streak of blood that had dried into a crusty streak on her face. "Not much for Cetra legends are you?"

Vincent shrugged. She was right; he never had much use for the old moldy lore of the Cetra, the long extinct race that had lived on the planet before humankind. Or presumed to be extinct, for in truth Vincent had recently met one. Supposedly the last one, but she was now dead too.

"Asgard was the 'home of the gods'. " Seri explained. "It's not clear exactly what that meant to the Cetra, since they worshipped the planet. But multiple creatures, not Cetra, presumably powerful. It was a mirror to Midgard, the home of mortal kind."

"Midgard? Midgar you think?" he asked. "But it's not a Cetra's city. Didn't they mostly live farther north?"

"We used to think that because Forgotten City is so marvelously intact. But don't forget they were highly nomadic. They went everywhere and they preferred simple dwellings. To be closer to the planet and all. It looks more likely now that Forgotten City was more of a... showcase, or a religious destination. I don't know, a resort maybe?" She seemed to find this idea funny. "Anyway, now that Midgar has been, well, pretty much blown to bits, things long buried under Midgar have been unearthed, ruins that that prove there was a Cetra civilization there, a city older, larger, and more established than from other ruins found.

So we have a Midgard, of sorts, or rather we had," she paused, thinking the rubble pile that was Midgar, "but no Asgard. Which maybe isn't surprising because City of the Gods and all, nobody actually thought that to be a physical place. But recently some texts have been uncovered in reference of how to get to Asgard. One had to pass through the _bridge_. Not over mind you, but through. The bridge's name was Bifröst."

Vincent looked sharply over at her. He was reminded painfully of the lab in Nibelheim where he spent so many tortured months as his body was torn apart and put back together beyond imagining. Before the long sleep. There were all those scientists, pouring over Cetra legends, manipulating mako energy into who knew what. Horrors, mostly.

"And who uncovered these texts?" he asked.

"Well, I guess I sort of did. There's a group at U of Mied, that's where I go to school, who are looking for imbalances in the Lifestream that might be related to damages to the planet. They found these patterns that seemed too complex for what they were looking for, and that were way bigger and more cohesive than the usual patterned bits of memory or spirit or whatever you believe is in there."

She stole a quick look at Vincent, in case she had offended in any way his belief system, but he had returned to his expressionless, forward gazing. In fact she wasn't even sure he was listening.

"So... they asked for help from the language department, thinking the types of analysis we use to understand language might help. The Language department sent me because my thesis is on deciphering the Cetra language, and that involves a lot of pattern recognition, almost like code breaking. It was pretty easy to see the Cetra language rhythms once their data was represented by symbols. We feel pretty sure on the place names and some of the concepts, but there are still quite a lot of holes. And it seems we've measured all the patterned data in our location relating to Asgard/Midgard/Bifröst and the rest of it just goes on about the stars and rain and love, tripe like that..."

Vincent raised an eyebrow at her.

"Not that those things aren't important, it's just that this missing city, I don't know, it seems so _exciting._ You know where the University MIED is?"

"North and West of here, I believe."

"Right! It's almost exactly on a line between Midgar and Bifröst. Twenty miles to either side off that line the Asgard patterns disappear. So I got leave from my professor to come th and measure the stream here for a month. I was supposed come with the techy grad student who normally takes the measurements with me, but apparently he's got some sort of phobia of open spaces. Never leaves the lab. Go figure. So here I am, hoping to find some more information on where Asgard is supposed to be and how to get there. "

"This is the coast. If it's any farther it would be under the ocean," Vincent said.

"Maybe. But as far as I can understand from the new data I've taken here, you don't get to Asgard traveling in any normal way. You have to pass through into some sort of spiritual realm. So I was thinking that Asgard probably is just a poetic construct... but now this guy with Asgard on his lips and exploding head, searching for a "Bridge Keeper"..."

Vincent moved in front of Seri and crossed his arms, blocking her progress. "Why does your type insist on mucking about with these old riddles? Nothing good ever comes of it."

"Oh?" Seri's face showed the first sign all day of irritation with the lanky stranger. "Did I mention the parts that suggest great powers are slumbering in Asgard? That their disturbance will "erase all that was known to the planet" or something to that effect? Consider that I am most likely too late in my mucking. Somebody else is obviously ahead of me. Somebody organized, with thugs and gil and willingness to shoot people!"

She glanced down quickly at the formidable weapon at Vincent's side. "No offense."

"None taken."

She looked back up at him, and Vincent now noticed bright flecks in her hazel eyes. That would be the mako that hit her in the face starting to express itself. He hadn't noticed any other shades in her pale brown eyes, but there must have been some blues hidden in there that the mako seemed to picking up and brightening, because small strands of neon blue now radiated out from the pupil. Or maybe it was just a strange effect of having yeega mako splashed in your face. She was going to be surprised to see that later. Maybe alarmed. He continued to scrutinize her irises, and this time she could not hold his gaze.

"Um, say, Vincent, I haven't thanked you. For myself, and the folks here. They're a good lot really, although I don't expect they've been very warm to you."

The gunman made no reply and turned to continue their walk. He wouldn't know what to do if people were 'warm' to him. Better if they weren't.

"What exactly were you planning, if those guys accepted your claim of being Bridge Keeper?" he asked.

"I don't know. I didn't actually have a plan. It was more like I couldn't not do something. You know what I mean?"

Vincent did know. For all his aloof reserve he never once hesitated to jump into the fray, even if he didn't fully understand why. But it was one thing to do that with a good weapon in your hand and superior performing limbs, quite another to step up unarmed and unenhanced.

"Well, you might be the bravest person I've ever seen," he said at last.

She laughed, one of those snorts causing her to cup hands over her mouth. "Did you just use 'brave' as a euphemism for 'foolish?' Never mind, either way I thank-you Mr. Valentine, you are too kind!" She gave a pretend curtsy, holding her hands with pinched thumb and forefinger onto the fabric of an imaginary skirt, and laughed again. Vincent wasn't sure his statement was all that funny, but he almost smiled anyway at the ridiculous sight of her, this dirty, bloody, and somewhat gruff girl imitating the feminine country gesture he'd frequently seen in this town.

"You know I don't think there's much chance anyone will be serving food after all this." Seri looked around at the noticeably few nervous souls in the normally busy main street. They scurried like rodents, hugging the buildings as if the openness of the street frightened them. "I have a small flat above the tailor's shop, with a kitchen. Can I offer you dinner?"

"No thanks."

"Now I know you're staying at the Olde Inn, and that there's no way for you to cook in your room there."

He looked at her quizzically.

"What, I can't be as nosey as everyone else in Bifröst? Not like there are a lot of six foot tall, long haired strangers in red cloaks strolling around this town. And watching the stream can get deadly dull.

Look, Vincent, you saved my life, I dragged you around all evening, you had to pick brains out of my hair, and I think I owe you forty gil. Please. Come eat some food at least."

Vincent mulled over the idea. He did have to eat, even if was no more hungry now than he ever was. And he was down forty gil for the day with nothing to show for it. Except maybe a little target practice.

"All right."

"Great! Just give me about 30 minutes to clean up, 'kay?"

That reminded Vincent of the blue strands in her eyes. "Do you have a mirror in your flat?"

"A mirror?" She put a hand up to her mess of hair, confused. "No, but I suppose I need one?"

"No, nothing like that. I'll see you in 30 minutes." He turned on the heel of his boot and strode toward the Inn. Seri shrugged and ran up the stairs to her flat, taking them two at a time.

**CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC**

"Lam, what's happened? Where are the others?"

Less a minute after leaving his bike haphazardly parked at the compound's perimeter, the surviving rider from the fiasco in Bifrost found himself whirled in a tight circle via a strong grip on his upper arm. The man who had taken hold of him, Temen Connor, was what served as second in command of their group. It was rotten luck for Lam; there would be no way to slip away now. He wasn't even sure why he had come back to the compound, other than his terror stricken mind was unable think of what else to do. But now that he was here he found he didn't want to face up to things. He wanted above everything to run, but he needed gas, and he wanted to see Tiesha, his wife. He knew she would not leave with him, and that she would try to change his mind. But he should at least say goodbye to her. He owed her that much.

But all those thoughts scampered from his mind at the touch of the man at his arm. He hung his head. "Gone. Dead."

Temen glanced back at the solo bike, eyes widening with understanding. He looked back to Lam, concern now covering his face. When he had snagged the lone rider, Lam had been headed toward the lodging barracks, away from the common buildings where he should have been heading to give his report.

"Lam, where were you going?"

Lam silently looked at the ground.

"You know you can't leave," Temen said. "There isn't anywhere you can run to, and besides, what will happen to you when we make the change? Would you leave Tiesha separated from your soul forever?"

Lam knew he was right. There was no running. Not from here, and not from the inevitable fate they meant to impose on the world.

"I don't want to see him," Lam said softly.

Temen nodded. Their leader, the one they called the Shepherd, reacted... strongly to failure.

"I'll talk to him for you," Temen said, "But let's go to my office, sit down for awhile. You can tell me everything."

It took over an hour to relate the short exchange in the town of Bifröst to Temen's satisfaction. Temen wasn't an interrogator or investigator by training, but his research scientist's background served him well for this type of thing. He was like a rat terrier regarding details, stubbornly asking multiple times for descriptions of people and names, scanning his notes for contradictions or holes that might be filled with the right prodding. The pandemonium of the attack was particularly hard to sort out, and Lam was clearly upset over their killing of the old man in Bifröst. Temen's stomach likewise churned.

"Don't worry about that son," he said, struggling to sound collected, "None of that will matter in the end when the Un-doing comes. All our sins will be wiped clean."

Lam smiled weakly and Temen dismissed him, worried that the man wasn't entirely comforted but not knowing what else he could do for him. Temen made the short walk to the 'blue building', one of the dozen or so lightweight mobile structures that made up their camp. He knocked on a door that rattled in its frame.

"Come," a voice, smooth and confident, echoed on the far side of the door. Temen drew a slow breath a let it out before turning the knob. He entered to see only the back of the man they called the Shepherd. Their leader's attention was fixed on a large topographical map of the Bifröst area mounted on the far wall.

"Only one of the acquisition team has returned?" the Shepherd asked. "I assume there is some problem?"

Temen felt the heat rise to his face, wondering how the man knew. No one would have come in to inform the Shepherd before him. But somehow the man always seemed to know what was going on.

"I'm afraid so," Temen said, making sure his voice was measured and careful. He then related the events, condensing and clarifying with an admirable degree of skill.

"Describe the gunman again," the Shepherd said, finally turning his relaxed, lean frame and looking intensely at Temen through delicately framed glasses. The sheer frankness of the attention loaded into the man's gaze tended to induce both discomfort and a feeling of flattery. It always made Temen want to come closer and step away at the same time.

"Tall, thin, red cloak, red headband, long straight black hair, large caliber handgun with long barrel. Relatively young, between 25 and 35." Temen repeated, a bit annoyed that he was being asked to repeat. The Shepherd only asked for information twice when he felt something was left out.

"His eyes?"

Temen flinched. Lam's comment regarding the gunman's eyes seemed emotional and not useful, and it was one of the few things Temen had consciously omitted. But now here was his boss ferreting it out of him.

"Lam said 'red eyes of the devil'. I assumed it was his fear talking."

"Vincent Valentine," the Shepherd said, now looking off in the distance and pursing his lips. In silhouette the jags of the Shepherd's rich brown hair reminded Temen of the mane of a flame wolf he saw a drawing of once, the way it regally flew away from the face.

"You know him?" Temen asked.

"I know of him. He's an Avalanche member."

"Avalanche is here?"

The Shepherd mused for a moment. "I don't think so. We'd have noticed if a group came in. I think he's alone. Maybe he hitched a ride, or came cross country on chocobo."

"But if he's Avalanche, could he not be persuaded to join us?"

"I can't say," the leader smiled, his thin features full of fondness and warmth directed at Temen. "We don't know that much about him. He played a role in the meteor incident, but nobody had seen him before that. The only related record we could find was a Turk of the same name that disappeared maybe 30 years ago."

"It's an unusual name. Son maybe?"

"Maybe. At any rate today's Avalanche is a far cry from the one I knew. They no longer wish to shoulder the burden of bringing change to the world. No, I don't think we can expect an ally in Mr. Valentine. And he might be more trouble than he already seems. From what information we could gather from the Meteor incident, he seems to induce a peculiar amount of destruction about his person. Possibly from an unusual summoning ability. But that's not going to trouble us, is it Temen?"

The Shepherd's now conspiratorial smile was mirrored by the other man.

"No sir," Temen said, the desire to step forward finally winning out.

**A/N: Mexico City, either the second or fifth largest city in the world (depending on your method of counting population), was built on top of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec civilization. Tenochtitlan was conquered and rebuilt by Spanish conquistadors in the 1500's, so it's not so long ago that people don't know it's under there, but still when they tear down buildings and dig around they find ruins, which I find fascinating. Tenochtitlan was huge, one of the largest cities in the world for its time. **


	4. Lovely

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. But I'm renting space in his head.

**A/N: Vincent's demons are going to start talking here, inside his head. Demons always talk in bold (like an A/N, heh heh) and their text looks different from each other. It's a tricky bit to do given the limitations of the editor, but I hope it works out OK for you guys.**

Vincent pulled open the heavy wooden door to the Olde Inn and startled no fewer than six people congregated in the foyer. This was more reaction to his presence than even he was accustomed to. He scowled at each of them in turn until the maid, another guest who seemed to be a full time resident, a shop keeper from next door, and two others he couldn't identify all nervously slunk from his presence. The landlady looked as though she wished to do the same, but in a fit of courage she rushed to Vincent and took up one of his hands (luckily his right, the natural one). She might have hugged him had the stiffness in his frame not warned her off.

"Oh Mr. Valentine, thank-you!" She said. "Little Suzi is my granddaughter, and I'm just sure those men would have killed her! If there's anything we can do for you, please, please, just ask."

"You can tell me who is this Bridge Keeper they were looking for."

The woman released his hand and backed away.

"I... I wish I could," she said.

Irritation darkened his face in way that caused landlady took another quick step away from him, her eyes rounding in sudden fear. Realizing he wouldn't get much information that way he forced himself to shut his eyes, cutting off the alarming red orbs from view. When he opened them again he made sure his face was entirely neutral. Gentle would have been better, but that wasn't a look he had much practice with.

"This isn't over," he said softly. "Whoever sent those men will try again, and I mean to do what I can to help. But you put me at a serious disadvantage of knowing less than they do."

The landlady bit her lower lip, a childish gesture out of place on her lined and aging face. "I can't help," she said, then her voice dropped to a whisper. "But maybe Erik Snortland can,"

"The shoemaker?" Vincent asked, struggling to keep the incredulity from his voice. Typical small town weirdness. The shoemaker will wind up holding the secret to the universe or something.

"I saw him talking to talking to someone afterwards, couldn't see who, but it had something to do with what happened. He's in that Temple League, those people, always messing around with that old Temple..." She looked quickly around the room, the combination of the terrifying day and Vincent's persona finally getting the best of her nerves. She turned and all but ran through the door.

Vincent sighed as he headed to his room. Sure, quaint little town on the coast, he had thought when he arrived. Now he had dead guys, a witch familiar with secret-guarding tactics even he had never heard of, and who, incidentally, could look into his soul and apparently count the dark shapes there. And now Shoemakers who were part of some secret society and a girl who was certainly going to get herself killed if he didn't do something.

Vincent climbed slowly to his rented room, taking the time to think more deeply about his involvement here. He was involved, at least according to principles that made his word binding onto himself. But why had he agreed? Certainly not out of a sense of obligation to join some moral crusade. He had his fill of playing hero, a role he had never wanted in the first place. But Vincent had to admit a certain fondness for the small town. Breakfast always included fresh bread, the air was unpolluted and smelled of the sea, and there no traffic noise, in fact rarely a machine noise of any kind. He admired the stubborn independence of the people. They provided almost everything they needed for themselves and looked out for one another. There was no cell phone coverage or any phones at all. That was maybe his favorite thing about Bifröst.

And something else nagged at the ragged edges of Vincent's emotional landscape. He had fought hard to save the world from a planet wide catastrophe, even if begrudgingly so. The end result had been the total destruction of humanity's largest city. Every one of these battles exacted ever larger tolls on the world he knew. Every place Shin-Ra had put a mako reactor attracted disaster, if not of the human variety then from some natural event related to the environmental pressures the reactors induced. Perhaps ShinRa had been cowed, imploded under its own weight and short-sightedness, but there would be others to take up that banner, marching mankind steadily to the brink of its own destruction in the name of progress. It seemed to Vincent that these tiny out of the way towns he had been finding on his travels this last year might be the last pockets of the human species someday. And somewhere along the way he had found them worth preserving, found in turn that maybe humanity was worth preserving.

But maybe most importantly it offended his sense of efficiency to have the work he'd already done go to waste.

In his small room at the top of a narrow staircase Vincent shook his other outfit free of the hangers it clung to. Despite his care earlier he had still gotten a fair amount of blood spatter on himself, and he didn't want to be the only one at dinner dirty, muddy, and bloody. He had only one other change of clothes as he preferred to travel light, laundering one set in whatever passed for sink in some backwards hotel and wearing the other while it dried. Clean clothes and rudimentary toilet kit in hand he headed down the hall to the single shared bath for the Inn. He never had to compete for the room; everyone at the inn seemed to know with psychic precision when he was headed for the privy and managed to stay out of his way.

He showered in the cramped stall, the whole room barely large enough to dress in. Like most rural towns in this part of the world there was no mirror, but he didn't miss it. He felt no desire to view his own face and he never needed to shave, a small gift in return for the collection of horrors that had been visited on his body by that bastard Hojo. He rapped the tips of his metallic left fingers on the edge of the sink and bullied thoughts of that time back into the dark parts of his mind.

Vincent emerged looking much the same as he went in, one set of black clothes exchanged for the other. Once black had been a required uniform for him, back when the Turks still wore black instead of their current blues, a change that had occurred shortly before his last disastrous days. Now he simply wore black out of habit. At least it covered blood and dirt well. As for the bright red of the rest of his ensemble that attracted so much attention wherever he went, well, he couldn't do much about that.

Seri's flat proved easy to find, as there was only one above the tailors shop, and there was only one tailor shop. Vincent was about to knock, but he received one of those peculiar pieces of internal communication:

_**Stop**_

But it wasn't alarm. Not the usual warning of an enemy near. This was some sort of... request? He listened, and heard what must have been the cause. Singing. He tuned in more carefully, his ear canals prickling as something inside them adjusted to increase his sensitivity. Seri was singing, a low, husky sound, the melody odd and laden with primal familiarity. He hadn't expected this compelling, even beautiful sound from her speaking voice, and then realized it wasn't so much the sound of her voice as the hypnotic melody. The a cappella song sifted softly through the closed door, shifting from raw flowing lows to sweeter high notes in a language he didn't know, but sounded strongly related to Wutaiese. He moved again to knock.

**.ИО.**

_**«Dοητ»**_

_**She'll stop**_

**grnnhn**

Now Vincent could feel them, all four awake and rapt with attention inside of him, lined up and fixated on the door. This was more than a little disconcerting. He had often wondered if part of his control over his 'guests' might be due to the fact that that they were fractious. They never agreed, never worked together. He was unsure what could happen should they lined up simultaneously against him. But at least their agreement now was a quiet one. Almost as quiet as if they were all sleeping at the same time, something that happened far too infrequently to allow him any kind of decent rest. And despite his impulse to spite these internal demons, he too did not want Seri to stop. Something in the melody compelled him instead to get closer, to hear better.

He slipped his hand down to the knob, and turned it ever so slightly. It was unlocked. He turned further, feeling the intermittent catching of resistance, moving side to side or shifting an angle with an expert touch so the knob would turn silently. Then he was inside as soundlessly as a wisp of air.

He was distracted momentarily by a wave of food smells and noted a surprising number of cooking implements strewn about in the kitchen. The place was sparse but comfortable looking, papers and books carelessly scattered on worn furniture. Three of the dim, flickering lamplights of the type favored in Bifröst lit the aging walls and ceiling with an uneven yellow glow, muting out their imperfections. He could hear her clearly now, and then the discontinuance of a familiar sound- running water. With it stopped the hypnotic sounds.

"For the love of the Lifestream, can she still be in the shower?" Vincent muttered to himself. "Am I early?"

_**«2 ½ mιημτες»**_

_Quiet down there,_ he commanded, and was relieved to be obeyed.

Then Seri, wearing a faded yellow bath towel, passed from what must have been the bath to the bedroom. She saw Vincent and stopped. He hadn't planned to intrude in this way and expected her to jump at the sight of him, but instead she just waved as though his uninvited presence were the most natural thing on the planet. Although technically he _was_ invited, it was just, even in the country, he supposed it was accepted practice to knock.

"Sorry, be right out!" she called. Vincent looked around the living room uncomfortably, squelching an uncharacteristic urge to fidget. He was going to have to explain himself, that's all there was to it. Maybe he'd try the truth.

Seri emerged in less than a minute, raking her fingers through her wet hair in a manner that was at best a poor substitute for a comb. She had put on a lightweight sleeveless dress of all things, the fabric draping over her female figure in a way that caused Vincent to avert his eyes just to make sure he wasn't staring. He wasn't prone to staring, but the outfit was a disorienting change from her earlier attire and he had no desire to be perceived as a pervert as well as a house breaker.

"Sorry for the... um, casual dress," she said, "Yesterday's outfit isn't quite dry yet and I only have the two, plus this housedress thing."

"It's lovely," Vincent said, an absent abstraction rather than a compliment, noting that she used the same travel clothes method as he. "I apologize for not knocking," he said, "I heard your singing and didn't want to interrupt."

"Oh?" She laughed, reaching over the counter to stir the pan on the stove, calves flexing with the effort above bare feet. "I assumed I just hadn't heard you. You could have lied."

"Lying only gets me into trouble." _Hell, just speaking usually gets me into trouble_, he thought.

"Still, sorry, I shouldn't have been in the shower. I actually showered before I started cooking, but I showered again..." She stopped, finally looking into his eyes and now Vincent could see something was bothering her, but it wasn't him. He waited.

"Say Vincent, I, uh... I remember everything, from when I was kind of out of it at the witch's hut. I remember you saying I had gotten some of the concentrated mako on my face, from the Yeega thing?"

Vincent nodded.

"It can be toxic, right? When it's concentrated? When it's been dicked around with like that?"

"Usually, yes."

"And then I started thinking about the mirror comment you made, and wondering, if... is there something wrong with my face?" Her hand went to her face, poking and prodding like a blind person trying to identify the shapes there. All five fingertips of one hand wrapped around her rounded nose. "I mean, I know I'm no beauty queen, but I've gotten kind of attached to looking... normal."

Vincent pinched her wrist between thumb and middle finger so as to minimize contact and plucked her hand away from her face. "Your face is fine," he said.

She gave his hand a brusque squeeze and without adequate warning to steel himself against the touch his arm gave the usual involuntary twitch. Seri had to have noticed, but ignored it.

"You've just got some mako enhanced blues in your eyes now," he continued. "It's a little strange, it's in streaks. It will probably dissipate with time, and you seem to be fine. Some people handle mako exposure well. Perhaps you would have made a good SOLDIER."

She scowled at what she presumed was teasing, but at least the worry had evaporated from her face.

"What'd you bring?" she asked, noticing a neck of a bottle jutting from one of his pockets.

"Oh, I forgot." And he had forgotten, how strange for him. It was a bottle of red wine he grabbed from his room before coming over. He had carried it from the last vineyard inland and hoarded it ever since, knowing they didn't grow grapes this close to the coast. He hauled it out for inspection.

"Wine! Where did you get it?"

Vincent shrugged. "It's probably awful."

"It's precious is what it is! Here." She found two mismatched glass tumblers and set them on the table, their hand-blown surfaces wavering in the light. She then riffled noisily in a drawer.

"I can't believe there's not a corkscrew in this place!"

But Vincent was already to work on the cork with a complicated widget he pulled from a pocket.

"You travel with a corkscrew?" Seri asked.

He shrugged as if to say 'who doesn't?' then filled both glasses. He tasted his first, wanting to know what they were in for, and was surprised to find it not half bad. Seri held hers aloft so that the image of the lamplight bowed and swirled in the red elixir as she rotated the uneven glass. She looked up into his eyes, and back at the red image. He knew what she was thinking, what she was going to say. He'd heard it a hundred times in different forms from his teammates, Tifa, the damn mechanical cat, even Cid enjoyed needling him over how the color of his eyes looked like wine. Or blood. Or some other fool thing. He readied himself for the comment, but instead she bypassed the obvious all together.

"It's not the color so much you know," she said instead, "it's the translucency."

A pot boiled over on the stove and Seri jumped up to save it, leaving Vincent with his thoughts. He watched her lift the pot from the stove, reach for utensils, and stir with quick motions. Muscles shifted and jumped under the smooth skin of her bare arms. She reminded him of the women fighters he knew- Tifa and the brat Yuffie, their ease and flexibility of motion, the quick accuracy of hands.

He made himself shake off this train of thought. Surely he wasn't feeling lonely for his... temporary teammates? Not friends. He had decided long ago he couldn't afford any of that category. Besides, the remnants of Avalanche had mostly disbanded now, everyone moving on with their own lives. They had fought well together, but with the fight over they had no need of him now.

"What are you cooking?" he asked partly to distract himself from himself, and partly because the food did smell enticing, even to a man with so little interest in food.

"It's called Creshu, my mother's recipe. And rice. It's not fancy, kind of a one pot dish, and I've had to experiment around with local vegetables, but like I said there's not much to do here. I can't measure the Stream until it's pretty dark, so I practiced cooking." She smiled and held up an oversized spoon in a manner Vincent thought more suited to a weapon than a cooking utensil.

But the food was better than it looked, and Seri talked through most of dinner about what she knew of the countryside, the locals, the tide-run turbines that provided scant but adequate power for the town. All which suited Vincent well. Even before Hojo's experiments he had not been much of a talker, plus one never knew when such information might be useful. He was tempted toward seconds on dinner but reminded himself that he had some work yet tonight. Full stomachs made for slow reflexes.

"Where's home?" he asked when there was finally a break in her chatter.

"Meritee."

"Ah. Near Wutai."

She nodded.

"I haven't been back in years," she said. "I have very fond memories of my childhood, but that was before the war." Her gaze drifted away.

Meritee had been supporters of Wutai in its separatist stance before the war. It was a tiny island neighbor to Wutai, but had a superb location. Superb, that is, for an army that wanted to launch an offensive against Wutai. Maritee was quickly crushed and occupied by Shin-Ra forces, some said willingly so. Most Wutains still considered Meritee weak and traitorous, even though long after the fighting ceased Maritee remained as spent and broken as if it had been the target itself. Vincent wanted to say he was sorry, but the word that was so at home in his mind proved too foreign for his tongue.

"I was 14 when we heard the Shin-Ra army was coming," she continued. "There was a meeting in the big town near my village. We all went. There was the usual talk about how it was good to be a good neighbor, and how we were a small providence but could be proud of our independence from Shin-Ra..." She smiled, a slow, sad expression.

"But when it came time to discuss the impending attack on Wutai it was clear they planned to do nothing. I was young but old enough to speak at a meeting. I clumsily tried to express what I felt to be the practical and moral truth. That we couldn't stand and watch our neighbors be slaughtered and expect any peace in our souls. It did no good. In a way I still think I was right, but they were right, too. We couldn't win. Wutai couldn't win. That general who led the assault, Sephiroth? I don't think he won either. Later ran off all crazed, I heard. I think he had no peace in his soul." She took another sip of her wine and stared into its depths.

"But there was a resistance in Maritee, I think," Vincent volunteered.

"Yes," she looked up at him, her lips still carved into that bare, bitter smile. "Not many people remember that when they think about Maritee. At first nobody fought, but I don't think anyone fully understood what it meant to be occupied by a fighting army. They were so destructive. Cruel. Wasteful and murderous in their heightened state of battle readiness. But still my father was opposed to the resistance. I left home with my uncle to fight. We hit them where we could, but they were so entrenched by then. We couldn't damage them without damaging our own land, our own buildings. Our own people." Her eyes drifted to a corner of the room, focusing on something far beyond her walls.

"And it's not like Shin-Ra didn't fight back. They routinely obliterated buildings they suspected we might be using for HQ or arms storage. My family was in one such building when they destroyed it. My mother, my father, my little brother. I don't think they ever understood my decision to fight. And they died because some of us were fighting back. Because I was fighting back."

Vincent could feel her heavy heart from across the table, for his beat its own dark and similar rhythm. He would have liked to say something, some word of comfort, but he knew damn well there were no words to ease this type of pain.

"Shin-Ra occupied Maritee for years after the war finished," she continued. "Then one day we realized they weren't an occupying army any more. They were just Shin-Ra. They had moved in and set up shop, became neighbors and spouses, and Maritee people likewise became employees of Shin-Ra. The presence of Turks and Soldiers dwindled not because of our efforts, but because they simply were not needed. So I left. I left Maritee and went to school. I sought out a course of study, a life really, as far from that violence as I could imagine."

Both were silent for a long while, and for Vincent much about the strange young woman finally fell into place and made sense. She hadn't been a Turk, but a resistance fighter. It accounted for her bearing and her attitude, and he could make a guess at her skills. But unlike a Turk, her sense of righteousness, morality, and even a type of naiveté might still be intact.

"Well," she feigned some brightness, popping out of her chair to collect the dinner plates. "If I haven't made an utter dirge out of a fine evening."

"No, you haven't." Vincent said softly, and he meant it.

She looked at him seriously. "Vincent, are you a Turk?"

"Do I look like one?" He glanced down at his distinctly un-Turk like dress, surprised to be asked the question he had so recently been contemplating of her.

"No. But my uncle always used to say 'Nobody shoots like a Turk'. Always followed by 'filthy bastards'."

Vincent almost smiled. It was an apt description as any. "I was, for many years. I am no longer."

She scanned his smooth face and compared it to his reserved and mature demeanor, his precision and clear head during the shootout. He had to be older than he looked, but certainly not much older than herself.

"You served during the attack on Wutai?" Her words were slow and deliberate, her neutrality carefully balanced.

"No."

"Then... when they dropped the plate in Midgar?" She asked.

The phrasing of her question let him know that she stood on the anti-Shin-Ra side of line. That she believed in her heart that the Turks had carried out that operation, despite the conflicting accounts. The plate in sector seven, separating the upper and lower portions of the city, had been dropped with precision explosives, crushing thousands of civilians below. The anti-Shin-Ra resistance group (some called them eco-terrorists), Avalanche, would have nothing to gain by hitting such a target. It was rumored Avalanche had a base in sector seven.

"No," he said.

"But given your age, how did you miss both of those events?"

Vincent did not answer. A tightness in his chest prevented him from saying the words that ricocheted inside his head, words that would excuse him of these sins. But beyond the absurdity of the explanation, he was stopped by knowing any excuse would be fundamentally disingenuous. It made no difference if she were too young to be familiar with the events of his era; he was no innocent. He was not suddenly suitable as a friend to her, or anyone else for that matter, simply because he had stepped into this room and had a nice evening.

And he had been having a nice evening. He had been enjoying himself, if only a little, in this relief from his world and his own inner torments. Some distant part of himself railed against letting her think ill of him just now, after witnessing her intimate divulgence of pain and guilt of a type so intense that he knew could forever severed the bearer from the rest of mankind.

"Wow, it's hot in here," she said, and returned to clearing the table. "This place doesn't get much of a breeze in the evening. I can't believe you sat through all of dinner with your cloak on. You can take it off, you know."

"I can't do that."

Seri looked at Vincent, her eyes saddened with the further disappointment of this additional frigidity. She turned away, stopped, and then turned back again, this time with the same appraising gaze she had first given him in the plaza.

"You meant that literally, didn't you?"

Vincent only stared, wondering what had he done. He had all but let her know.

"May I touch you?" she asked, as careful as one might to a frightened child.

Vincent shut his eyes and bowed his head slightly. She took his gesture for a yes.

"I'll be careful. I know you don't like to be touched. I figured that out for myself already." She reached forward and undid the clasp near his chin. The claps that had allowed him to pass for normal, although eccentric. How Chaos had howled when he put them in. More out of indignation than pain. Chaos never cared much about pain. She undid the second. How Vincent had howled, like an animal, when he found he was left full-time with these physical vestiges of his final and most powerful demon. The third clasp, and she gently pushed the top of the red flowing fabric over his shoulders where it hung from a foot wide swath between his shoulder blades, the section that connected to skin and muscle and bone and maybe right to his soul through the custom cut in the back of his shirt. She held it in her hands as she walked behind him. The surface was like the soft skin of rose petals, but at the same time was tough and slightly warm to the touch. Where she had let it fall one portion became indistinguishable from the next. She could find it again by pulling and picking through it, only to have it slip through her fingers once more and join its neighbor. Vincent forced his body to stay still, his mind to stay still. He had never let anybody, _anybody, _do this before. Her fingers trailed to the tattered ends. He knew exactly where her fingertips brushed, where she touched. She investigated the natural break between the two halves down the middle of his back. They separated, then flowed seamlessly back together again and seemed to connect. She repeated the experiment to see the same result.

"Vincent these look like some sort of vestigial wings," she said.

Vincent Valentine hung his head lower still, eyes closed tightly. He felt a light touch to the side of his head; she had moved a lock of his hair. Yet he didn't jerk or stiffen.

_Great, _he thought, _so there is one spot on my body not tortured into hypersensitivity. Apparently my scalp._

Now she was moving her fingers along his headband.

_Yes, go ahead why don't you, it's the same stuff_.

Light fingertips continued moving back and forth, and he was feeling slightly drowsy. Something deep inside of him purred. Something sinister.

Vincent straightened suddenly and leapt back a step, overturning a chair, his eyes now open and fully alert. Shame filled his face and heart with the sudden reminder of what he held. What lived inside him, what was part of him. Seri was left standing in the middle of the room, her hand still poised in midair, a look of open wonder on her face.

"Well aren't you lovely," she said. It was the last thing Vincent expected to hear.

"Do the rest of your clothes come off, or do you have to shower with everything on?

"The rest of my clothing is normal," Vincent heard himself reply, a bit dazed by the question, by the entire exchange.

"And this?" she put her left hand in the air and wriggled her fingers.

Reluctantly Vincent brought his left arm into view from where it had been lurking all evening under the table or under his cloak. He moved his fingers and rotated his metal ensconced hand from side to side as if examining it for the first time himself, the bright gold glinting in the lamplight. He could tell she wanted to touch that too. Seri was one of those people too fearless for their own good. No Gaia given sense.

"I believe it's fused into the bone." he said.

"Shin-Ra?"

He nodded.

"Vincent, how old are you?"

"Much older than I look. My Turk days were long ago. I was not in Wutai, nor did I drop the plate on Midgar."

She smiled a little at him then, her face relieved, her eyes so clear he thought he would be able to see inside of her straight down to her toes.

**A/N: I read once that sqeenix gave no explanation for the change of clothing for Vincent from the Turk suit to this elaborate costume he wears . Looking at it from an artistic standpoint, it's obvious- they gave him elements in common with Chaos, the tatters of his cloak look a lot like the ragged edge of Chaos' wings, and that bulky headband hearkens to Chaos' red headpiece. ****Kind of ties the whole package together. ****Cool. But why, from a storyline standpoint, would he be dressed so? I could think of only one explanation. I checked with my technical advisor and have been assured that Vincent NEVER takes that cloak off in any canonical material. I didn't check about the headpiece. Que será.**


	5. A Rooftop

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. I suspect nobody does.

**A/N: OK, I'm going to declare the guessing for the canonical identity of the Shepherd done and award the oneshot to Angeal Valentine. Although I did have to let her guess three times. So please AV, pick your topic...**

"Hey you want to take a look at the Lifestream through the scope?" Seri asked, shifting the topic of conversation away from her uncomfortable guest.

Vincent nodded. He wanted to see what she was working on, not solely to distract the focus from himself, but if he was involved in this mess he needed to know everything about it.

Seri grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and dragged it over to the middle of the living room under a skylight. She stood on the chair and pushed the skylight until the dome toppled away.

"You look at it from the roof?" Vincent asked, perplexed.

"Yeah, these patterns are in the lower atmosphere streams. You did know it was up there, right? It's just so thin we can't usually see it. That's why we need the scope. Hand me those cases?"

Vincent passed three heavy, battered cases up to her and she hoisted them over hear head and onto the roof. Then with a foot on the back of the chair she deftly pushed herself up. Vincent was sure the chair would topple, or he would have to catch her, but neither occurred. In a flash of bare leg and skirt hem she was up and through the small square hole.

"I take it that is your normal method," he called up to the roof.

Seri's inverted head appeared through the hole. "The one and only. Just don't bump the chair out of place, that part can be tricky. We'll need it to get back down. Do you need a hand?"

"I do not."

As Vincent watched her his mood eased a little. She was athletic, muscular, and could probably fight, too. He'd heard those Maritee rebels were tough. She probably didn't fit very well socially with the academics at the University. And they were both misfits here.

Her head disappeared and Vincent looked at the chair appraisingly. "Tricky" he said to himself. He placed a toe of his boot on the edge of the seat gently pushed it a meter out of the way. Then he launched himself cleanly through the skylight with barely a handhold touch. He landed two-footed onto the roof.

Seri stared at his unusual arrival. "OK." was all she said, and then busied herself with her equipment.

"Does nothing about me alarm you?" he asked, though in truth he could think of a thing or two that would. Or four.

Seri smiled a little without looking at him. "In Maritee we have a custom where a baby is not given a name until four weeks after birth. I think it comes from the old days when the infant mortality rate was so high, so then, you know, maybe the attachment would be less or something?"

Vincent stared at her, wondering where this most recent babbling was going.

"But nowadays," she continued, "that period is used to find a name for the child that suits the personality. You know what my name, Sarina means?"

"Impertinently curious?"

"Nooo," she snort-laughed. "It means calm. And the truth is I'm not easily alarmed, although I'm considered a little excitable for a Mariteen."

Vincent hadn't met many Mariteens, but he suspected this was true. Seri's nerves were certainly solid, and if anything she under-reacted to danger, but she stuck him as kind of... energetic.

"Anyway, it's a great honor to get a name related to anything soothing or calming, our entire culture revolves around it. Our stories, our food, music, the folk songs..."

The food, Vincent thought. She had fed him. And she had been singing.

"When I came in you were singing something."

"Right, there you go, that's a particularly good example, because I was kind of freaked out that maybe I had been turned into some sort of hideous mako-beast or something. I actually tried to look at myself in a spoon."

Vincent groaned. That was his fault for saying what he did earlier about the mirror.

"Anyway I was trying to, well, calm myself down. It's actually an ancient lullaby, meant to soothe the agitated spirits, to drive away nightmares, that kind of thing."

_Nightmares._

"Would you sing more of it for me?" the words were out before Vincent was fully aware he was saying them. He became immediately uncomfortable that he had made such a request and gritted his teeth in frustration.

She smiled at him, finally silent for a moment. "For you, yes."

She sang while she assembled components and twisted mounting knobs. It was the same melody that Vincent heard from outside her door, and it induced the same curious quiet attention of the four inside him. This time the effect was less worrisome as he could feel, or at least believed he could feel, that they were up to no mischief. Just listening. And they weren't the only ones. His own internal voice, in reality his worst demon with its constant reiteration of painful truths and recriminations, was stilled as well.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Vincent was startled to find that she had stopped singing. And what had he been doing? Apparently staring out into the glittering night sky. Maybe right into the invisible lower atmosphere Lifestream. Yes it was beautiful, and he thought he must be completely out of his mind, but it was possibly the most peaceful moment he'd had in over 30 years. Vincent Valentine looked down at her for the first time without the shadow of pain on his face, his expression finally matching his youthful features. His unguarded look prompted her to reach up and place her fingertips lightly on his lips, full for a man's and as soft as the red cloak she had touched earlier. In that rare moment she ran her hand, warm and solid, down his arm until she took his hand, all without a single flinch from him.

"Come look." She maneuvered his now relaxed form in front of a wide, squat telescope with a small screen instead of an eyepiece. He was alert now, but the normal agitation in his guts (or his head, wherever the hell the beasts lived) was still hushed. He was distracted by the sensation, thinking he could sleep like this. He certainly needed the sleep. He always needed it and peaceful sleep was seldom granted. But not tonight; he had plans.

"What am I looking for?" he asked. The screen was filled with purple wisps.

"Just find me a dense spot."

He turned the nearest knob on the device. Nope, that was some sort of focus. Another panned right and left, and finally he found the up-down.

"How about here?"

"Looks good."

"Why is it purple?"

"I don't know, it's this knob here, it changes the color," Seri reached over and turned the knob to show him. Now the wisps on the screen were orange.

"You don't really know how this machine works, do you?" Vincent asked.

Seri shrugged. "I'm just the language expert. The technical guy tried to show me but I'm afraid all I got out of it was how to turn it on and off. Honestly I think he was obfuscating on purpose. Those tech guys were kind of snobby to me."

Vincent grunted his acquiescence; he knew the type. Some of those eggheads built their entire self esteem by trying to prove at every turn they were smarter than everyone else. As a Turk assigned to ShinRa labs he had used their arrogance to his advantage and had been the perfect covert observer in many ways. Until he learned a little more than he wished he had.

Vincent played with the mysterious color knob, then some others. It was clearly an optical based instrument that detected non-visible wavelengths. Probably UV. He seemed to remember reading that the Lifestream put out some UV. That would fit with her having to measure at night; otherwise the sunlight would swamp a weak signal. The controls indicated the display was a digitized rendering. The 'color' knob was almost certainly a filter of sorts, one of several. He played with knobs and found he could optimize for edges or texture or some thin lines running through everything.

"Wait, stop! How did you do that?" Seri stopped just short of grabbing his arm.

He turned to see her scrolling and zooming on the small computer that was apparently collecting data from the telescope. The right half of the screen listed parameters related to wavelength, intensity, and phase. One of the knobs must have controlled a polarizer. Seri appeared to ignore this side of the screen. She was studying the other half held an image that looked like a beach full of pebbles to Vincent.

"Here, this is some of the pattern relating to Asgard," she said excitedly. "You look at this stuff long enough it becomes obvious." She zoomed in on one pebbly section. "This bottom window runs the decoding program we wrote."

Jibberish flashed and disappeared in the little window. Eventually a few words solidified and stayed, while the rest kept mutating.

"It never finds good matches for all of it; I take a few words here, a few from other sections, and try to make sense of them."

"You've got 'green' and 'water'," Vincent said. "We're looking for green water?"

Seri looked thoughtful. "Well, it makes some sort of sense. I have already seen 'red' and 'fire' paired together, as well as 'blue' and 'air'. Seen any tri colored things made of fire, air and water around?"

"No. Maybe we can do a little more here." Vincent reached over her and moved the mouse to adjust settings on the right side of the screen, then coordinated them with some buttons on the machine. The basic principles of measuring instruments, the type in laboratories and even surveillance equipment that Turks used, hadn't changed so much in the last thirty years. What had changed was their electronics and computer control, and if anything that just made things easier.

Eventually Seri settled for looking over Vincent's shoulder hollering stop when something became interesting. She wrote everything down in a small notebook, some which she determined to be interesting and some belonging to the Cetra love sonnets as she had come to call them. After about an hour the display became static-filled and vague.

"Moon's up," Seri said, "that's it for tonight."

Vincent leaned back and stretched a bit, then swiveled the scope around, pointing it at various parts of the town out of curiosity, but saw no change in the snowstorm of a view. He pointed it at Seri.

"I know we're all supposed to have a bit of the Lifestream in us," she said, "but it never picks up people."

She began to hum as she saved files on the computer, and suddenly Vincent did see something. Small bright tendrils began to curl around a vaguely human silhouette. He peered closer to be sure of what he was seeing, and wondered if they had tried getting the instrument to detect humans under different conditions, while they were singing for example. He moved his right hand out in front input and the screen immediately flashed brightly and then went dark with a small snapping sound. He felt a small lilt in his stomach as it did so, a vertigo similar to the feeling of freefall.

"What did you do?" Seri asked, more alarm in her voice than the calm that supposedly was her namesake.

Vincent held his hands up and shook his head to indicate he hadn't done anything, and Seri gave the thing a thump against its side. The screen returned to its static filled view.

"Twitchy damn thing," she muttered. She was rubbing her hand across her chest and frowning. "Hmm... heartburn or something."

Vincent doubted it was heartburn and wondered if the scope had caused this odd feeling in the both of them. He filed away a mental note to be cautious where he pointed the thing. Seri finished shutting down the computer, but continued to stare at its dark screen.

"Vincent... Do you think they'll come tomorrow? The Yeega guys?" It was as good a name for them as any.

"Maybe. But more likely they'll wait until the next nightfall, and kidnap a single target to get what they need."

"Really?"

"It's what I'd do."

"Turk."

In the dark beside her he winced at the remark, but her tone was gentle and without recrimination, and he knew it was only his sensitivities that made such comments hard for him. She in fact looked peaceful in the slender moonlight as it washed her face in muted colors. Calm again. He returned his mind to the task at hand.

"What we need to do is get ahead of them," he said, "Figure out what they're up to. I've got one lead to a guy who might be mixed up in this bridge business, I think it may have something to do with the old temple on the north side of town. I'm going to go ask some questions." Vincent stood up and refastened his cloak, which had been left hanging off his shoulders.

"At this hour?" She asked

"I don't expect him to be cooperative; for such conditions night is always better."

Seri looked thoughtful, then started quickly packing up her equipment in a determined fashion.

"And where do you think you are going?" he asked.

"To the temple. Like you said, night is probably better."

"Oh no, not by yourself you're not."

She looked at him stubbornly.

"That single target the Yeega guys will be after, who do you suppose that's going to be?" he asked.

"OH, it would be me! The "Bridge Keeper". But they won't come tonight surely?"

"We don't know that. We don't know how far away they are, or if they're in a hurry, or if they're desperate. We don't know anything. They may be _at _the temple for all we know."

Seri pursed her lips. Vincent knew that look, there was no way he could leave her here alone and expect her to stay away from that damn temple. He sighed. Maybe it was one of his atonements to only work with obstinate women.

"Come with me on my errand, and then we'll go together."

Seri smiled at him, biting her tongue that stuck out the corner of her mouth. It was an odd, and Vincent thought probably colloquial, gesture. She prepared to jump back down through the hole.

"Hey, you moved my chair!" she said.

"Need a hand? It's tricky." A wicked little smirk crawled across Vincent's lips, hidden behind the red cowl of his cloak.

**A/N: I don't actually make all this stuff up. I'm pulling of the same Nordic legends prevalent in FFVII. ****Bifröst is the name of the tricolored bridge made of fire, water, and air that passes between the city of men, Midgard, and the city of the Gods, Asgard. **


	6. Elsewhere that Night

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. But he secretly wishes I did.

**A/N: OOPS I should have posted this last bit with the last chapter, because it happens at the same time as the dinner and rooftop time Vincent and Seri are spending together. Someday I'll get this chapter cutting business down.  
**

The Shepherd could hear his flock before he saw them. The rock outcropping formed a natural amphitheater for to him to speak from, but at the moment it was funneling the sounds of group back to him as he paused in the wings. He used this still moment to gauge the human climate of those gathered. The sounds were soft and respectful- that was good. He had a problem the moment they started to loose that respectful, even fearful, hush. But even so, the muted voices were different this time. Rather than the usual expectant, happy, anticipatory undertones, the murmurs had some sort of edge that had to be anxiety. Everyone would have heard by now of their failure in Bifröst.

He cleared his mind to focus on what he needed to say, and stepped onto the raised mound that served as a podium. The crowd of 500 or so quieted, with every pair of eyes fixed on his long ceremony robes, earthen colored and glittering with materia dust that enhanced the light from the strategically placed oil lanterns surrounding his location. Other oil lamps gently illuminated the assembly. With the moon not even up yet the lamps weren't enough for the Shepherd to see the faces before him clearly, but it couldn't be helped. As part of their beliefs not a single device powered by mako or a mako-charged battery existed in their camp, at least as far as any of the followers knew. So it was unfortunate for him that this had come down at night, when he couldn't read the crowd properly, but he couldn't wait to have the meeting until tomorrow morning. He would have to do this by feel.

The Shepherd scanned the darkened gathering before him, pretending as though he could actually see into the eyes of the distinct men, women, and children. He knew them all and conjured up detailed images in his mind to try and help foster this nocturnal connection. They were mostly young, somewhat more women than men, the children mostly small. He had a good compliment of teenagers, some runaways, others simply let loose to drift from uncaring parents. All were idealistic and hopeful, trusting in him to lead the way.

"Brothers, sisters," he began, voice confident and amplified beautifully by his natural surroundings. "Today we suffered our first real battle. And we lost some of our own." He paused. The sound of a sniffle drifted up from the dark sea below.

"We knew our road would not be a smooth one, that it could not be carefree. Nothing morally worthwhile can be gained without sacrifice, and we have paid that sacrifice today. But now is not to time to waver; it is the time to embrace our resolve. We are at the final step, the very threshold of our victory. We need only the Bridge. The Rainbow Bridge will deliver us to our goal, to release the spring that is already wound and set for us, the eraser of the poisonous sins and aberrant damage that the _almighty_ ShinRa has inflicted upon the natural world.  
Erasure too of our sins, our personal sins, small by comparison but also worthy of cleaning. For us, the faithful, the new beginning is almost in our hands. Remember the dream," The Shepherd's voice sweetened, casting an ethereal web that snaked through the listeners. He was sure he could feel them now, a kind of resonance pulsing through their rapt silence that let him know he had them, had them like bright golden nuggets swirling in a miner's pan.

"Remember the dream" he voiced in barely over a whisper, "of pristine lands, clean air, simple lives, and the love of the planet weaving through all life as it was meant to, as it did in the time of the Cetra, as it did in the waking time of the Gods."

He paused, sweeping the crowd again with a slow, meaningful look, a bright sparkle in his dark eyes. "Our next step is already upon us. I lead the chosen group myself; we depart in fifteen minutes."

A small murmur went up from the group below him as people looked from side to side, wondering who were the chosen, questioning those particularly close to their hearts, and simultaneously envying and fearing for those who would get to play part.

"Planet bless!" The Shepherd called out, forcing an interruption as the crowd repeated in a unified, solemn reply:

_Planet bless!_

The Shepherd slipped quickly out of the light and shirked his cumbersome robe, a move that in its suddenness made him seem to disappear. He quickly checked the gear on his midnight-black tactical outfit and looked up to his Second in command, Temen, startling the man with that slight shine to his eyes that came from no lamplight.

"Everyone ready?" the Shepherd asked, suddenly curt and businesslike.

"The team should already be assembled at the stables," Temen said, checking his own gear to hide his nervousness, half from knowing he wasn't trained for this type of action, half from the idea that they might actually gain the bridge tonight. And half because he hated chocobos, even if they were the stealthiest choice.

"Good," the Shepherd said as they walked. They slipped through a crack in a side wall of the stone face that was so cleverly concealed they would have seemed to vanish had anyone been observing them. After several bends that effectively kept even the faintest glow from escaping, they came to a small, well lit room, crowded but neatly piled with equipment. A mako generator purred almost silently in one corner. The Shepherd gave it a longing glance; he would miss that quiet and efficient source of power; oil-fuel based generators were damn noisy. But it was for the best. They all knew that.

He walked over to a large console and began adjusting knobs, causing a rise in the pitch of the mako generator's hum as additional load was put on it. "I'm opening the Bridge now," The Shepherd said, "In three, two, one."

He quickly turned a large wheel once around and then threw a lever. The room dimmed and Erik had that peculiar feeling that the air was sucked out of his lungs as the mako generator gave one more whine of protest. They had tested the trigger several times before and it always produced this strange sensation. Everyone felt it, although without knowing the cause the flock just dismissed it as some temporary bodily dysfunction. But as for its true function, did it actually open the bridge? Who knew for sure? Not to mention the second function, did the equipment really produce the protective bubble around their compound against the very forces of time, should they succeed in their mission? That was a leap of faith if ever there was one. Temen looked to his leader; everything depended on this man, if he really was as brilliant as they hoped. But Temen didn't just hope; he believed. He'd seen evidence of the man's genius and Temen, himself widely accepted as one of the brightest minds on Gaia, had signed on the day he had understood himself to be so powerfully outclassed.

"Bring the box, in case we run into Mr. Vincent Valentine," the Shepherd said.

"I already have it loaded." Temen patted the satchel on his side, feeling the corners of the brick-sized box inside.


	7. To the Temple

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. And he tells me to quit telling people that he wishes I did.

Outside the shoemaker's home, Vincent stopped and looked down at Seri, now dressed more practically in pants and boots. He was pleased that she had moved quickly and silently through the streets with him, stealth and speed were always assets. Good Turk skills, although he didn't dare say such a thing to her.

"I need to do this alone. Stay out here."

She scowled at him, but slowly nodded in agreement. Vincent wasn't sure why he wanted her to wait outside. He told himself it was to keep her from mucking up his efforts. But part of his mind nagged that he was rationalizing. Maybe he just didn't want her to see what he knew he might do, or more precisely what he was willing to do.

He pushed his thoughts aside and slipped easily through the unlocked front door, wondering if anyone secured their doors in this town. He quickly reviewed everything he knew about Erik Snortland, the cobbler, mostly from Seri over dinner. He was a relatively young man, reserved, and spoke softly. He had a sickly wife who tended to be nervous and a single child, a boy of about six, whom he thought the world of. The boy would probably be in his own room. The wife, however, might pose a problem. Nervous people often got hysterical when you sneaked up on them in the dead of night. He was considering options to keep her quiet when crept into the kitchen he saw he wouldn't need to. There, sitting in the dark with a glass and bottle in front of him, a lock of pale hair hanging in his face, was Erik Snortland.

"Shhhh." Vincent hissed as he stepped into the man's view, such as it was in the inky blackness. The shoemaker jumped but didn't call out, either because he was started dumb, or, as Vincent thought the more likely, he had been expecting someone. Vincent hadn't been too worried about it either way, he was sure he could have grabbed and gagged him before the man could make much more than the beginnings of a squeak. He sat in the chair opposite.

"Is it you?" the shoemaker squinted into the darkness.

Vincent waited.

"I'm not doing any more. After today, I'm out of it."

"Maybe wise, but too late."

Erik, now truly alarmed, leapt to his feet and knocked his chair backwards. Vincent was on him in an instant, right hand covering the man's mouth while the metallic left bit deep into shoulder muscle. A muffled whimper escaped from his victim while Vincent soundlessly guided the chair he had caught with his thigh back upright. When the shoemaker had calmed, he slowly released his grip and dropped him back into the chair. The man blew out his breath, heavy with the smell of alcohol.

"Mr...Valentine?"

"Yes. I think you need to tell me some things."

"I'm not a coward." Erik reached over and massaged his left shoulder, wincing. It felt like it had been pinched in a vice. A vice with pointy pieces on it. "But my wife, she can't care for our son alone. She's not well. If anything were to happen to me...

"Who is the Bridge Keeper?" Vincent prompted to keep Erik on track, the alcohol swimming in the man's veins not helping his focus any.

"There are four right now, actually. I am one. Although the town calls us "the Temple League". A group of eccentrics who once a week trek out to the temple. You've seen it? That big thing outside of town?"

"Yes," Vincent answered. A blind man would have seen the crude, hulking structure that loomed over a good portion of their horizon like a sleeping, stone giant.

"Anyone can join the temple League, but they don't know about the inner circle. About the Bridge Keepers. It's the only way to keep a secret in a town like this, hide it within something open and known. But the inner circle..."

Erik's voice drifted off, and Vincent was about to prod again when he continued.

"It's supposed to be an honor, really. There's always been Bridge Keepers, a job passed down from one generation to the next for thousands of years. An honor and a secret. And here I am telling my secrets." The man gave a quick, mirthless laugh, and rose his glass to take another drink. Vincent's hand shot out and stopped its progress.

"I think your secret is already out," Vincent said. "What do the bridge keepers do?"

"We go in," Erik said simply. "We know how to get in. That's all really, we walk the tunnels, fill the water, meet in front of the door. That's the "bridge", I don't know why it's called that, it looks more like a door. It's just a big, rectangular, hole in the rock. None of us even knows where it goes or why we're supposed to sit and watch it. But sometimes smells or faint sounds come out of it. Or feelings, That's the freakiest thing, having a _feeling_ waft out of there and wash over you like it was wind and leave you ecstatic or weepy or... whatever. And it has an evil little poem that goes with it:

_Father in bottomless grief of son__  
Vowed to make the pain undone__  
And erased the world of all there was  
Leaving choice of memory to none_

_Keep it well, the rainbow bridge  
__Lest against the past you would sin__  
In Asgard dwells this power still  
Left-handed curse of Odu-in_

Both men sat in silence for several moments, Vincent mulling, not without some personal pain, over what it might mean to sin against the past.

"You said you were one Bridge Keeper. Who are the others?"

"Regular townspeople. Ordinary folk like myself. Sherriff Jansen. Arnis Avery, a retired rancher. I reckon they're all at the temple by now. Where I should be."

"'Keeping' this bridge-door?"

Erik nodded in the dark, a gesture that might have been missed if not for Vincent's unusually acute night vision.

"Then that's where I shall be going." Vincent stood up.

"You won't get near them, or the bridge," Erik said, "The place is a fortress, with a labyrinth for an entrance."

"Then I shall need a guide."

"No. I'm not going back. And I'm not bringing you."

Vincent pushed passed him, heading deeper into the shoemakers house. He had about his fill of small town foolishness.

"What are you doing?" asked Erik Snortland, fear lacing his voice

"Getting something of yours to encourage to you accompany me. The boy is a good choice. Your wife I will shoot."

The shoemaker bolted forward, only to have his chest hit something cold and solid before he reached the intruder. Even in the darkness he knew what it was. He had heard all about Vincent using it earlier that evening, even if he had missed all the action. It was that enormous three barreled gun.

"You're mad!" Erik hissed, "What kind of man are you?" And in the blackness he thought he saw a yellow glow flicker in the madman's eyes.

ccccc

"Oh, hey, Erik!" Seri popped up from where she had been sitting at the edge of the street and drawing patterns in the dirt with a stick. "You're going to help us?"

"Your new friend can be very persuasive," he glared at Vincent, who was already striding toward the direction of the temple. Seri had to run to catch up to him.

"Vincent... what did you do?"

"What I had to."

"You know, later, lets have a philosophical discussion regarding ends and means, shall we?"

Vincent scowled at her, then at the shoemaker tagging behind them.

"Keep up!" he snarled at them both.

ccc

Even at Vincent's driving pace it took them an hour to reach the temple. Seri had always assumed it to have been much closer to town because the actual distance was deceptive owing to the sheer size of the thing. Erik had just finished, at Vincent's insistence, telling her all he knew of the mysterious door. Which was surprisingly little, but the poem intrigued her.

"Who's the grieving father in the poem?" she asked.

"Odu-in, I think. At least that's what we always say."

"Odu-in," Seri said, "That's a really old pronunciation of Odin, the mythical creature, the one that rides the horse. One of the old gods who lived in Asgard. They always say myth has lining of truth running through it, but I never heard a tale with a son in it. There are a lot of people from my neck of the woods that still believe Odin is real."

"He's real," Vincent said. "In a way at least. He's a materia summon. I've summoned him myself." Vincent was aware of the silence behind him, probably induced by shock. Social convention dictated that he explain further, but he had long ago abandoned social convention, and besides, he had nothing else to add. He had possessed the Odin materia briefly before losing it. But in fact the thing had a mind of its own and was devilishly difficult for anyone to hang on to. One moment it would be sewn into a pocket and the next it would be gone, through a hole that hadn't been there before.

Eventually Seri gave up waiting and turned her attention back to Erik. "The business about choice of memory and sinning against the past, any idea what that stuff means?"

"No, but it sounds definitely non-good."

"It does. Well some of the rest makes sense with other things we know," she said, "If the bridge was originally named Bifrost, then it's quite possible the nearby town could have taken that name. The town is very old, isn't it?"

"Well, it was founded before recorded history," Erik said, "But why would anyone name a town after something that's supposed to be secret?"

"Maybe it wasn't secret then. The words for "bridge" and "door" in the Cetra language are very similar. Maybe their concepts were similar, if a door could transport you someplace else... like a bridge. But it's always black, you say? Not rainbow colored? Maybe red, green or blue?" Seri asked, citing the three colors that had come up from her Lifestream reading activities.

"No." Erik said. "Completely black. Not like a thing painted black, more like something that's black because there's nothing there. The same way a well is black when you look and can't see the bottom."

"Anyone ever try to jump through it?" she asked.

Erik gave her an incredulous look. "No. Gods. You're _both_ crazy. How do you know all this stuff anyway?"

"I spend my pathetic life studying it." Seri was surprised to hear what sounded like a soft chortle from Vincent's direction. She hadn't even been sure he was still listening.

"And by the way Erik," she continued. "Hardly anyone else on the planet says "gods". But here the whole town does. I think it's because you've been living on the doorstep to their city."

"Whose?"

"The gods."

Erik stopped, jaw hanging open. He trotted to catch up with more enthusiasm than he expected. Despite the rough manner of his invitation on this trek a small spark of hope had ignited inside him, the first hope since the killers had come to their town on an ordinary evening. Hope that there might be some intelligent way through this mess. And although he could scarcely admit it to himself, his hope was mingled with desire for answers to riddles long asked.

All three eventually stopped with their toes at the first of an impossibly long set of steps leading up to the temple.

"Well," Seri said, "I guess you Bridge Keepers get plenty of exercise,"

"We call it cardiac climb," Erik said, grinning. His mood had improved greatly during their hike but he was still careful to keep on the far side of Seri from Vincent. "There's 532."

Seri gave a few fake choking coughs before starting up at a brisk pace. With one wary glance toward Vincent, Erik followed. Vincent stayed deliberately behind them. He was always a little uncertain regarding stairs, how fast normal people could take them. If he was going to be dragging these two around with them he preferred they not be completely exhausted.

But he needn't have worried. Erik and Seri were childlike in energy and mood, trotting up the stairs, sometimes racing between the flat landing sections, calling to one another. He marveled at their high spirits after a such a difficult day. Or, maybe more accurately, the infectious quality of Seri's which he suspected to be source of the other's good humor. By the time they reached the top they were breathless but laughing, hanging on one another for support. Vincent's silent arrival seconds later had a sobering effect on the young family man, although Seri merely shook her head at him with a kind of gleeful wonder at his apparent lack of exertion.

"Geez Valentine, could you at least breathe hard or something?" she managed to wheez out.

He walked past them, his attention now on a massive stone door covered in weathered carvings of what looked like abstract geometric shapes.

"It's not a Cetra temple," Seri said, "or at least not like any I know about. I've been ignoring it the last three weeks for that reason. I figured it was one of those relics from early humans."

"It's different inside," Erik said, "I think maybe it was built on top of something else. I've never seen a Cetra temple, so I don't know if that could be what it once was." He looked at the other two thoughtfully. "I've never even been out of Bifröst. I've never brought anybody up here before, either" Erik frowned as the gravity of his situation seemed to sink in.

"I believe you still have a bargain to uphold," Vincent said, stepping forward and letting his cloak open up on his right, exposing part of Cerberus.

Erik flinched backward. "All right, no problem. It'll take a minute though."

He pulled out an odd metal tool from a lanyard around his neck, inserted it into a slot, and immediately a panel opened up. Beneath the panel lay an assortment of movable parts of which Erik began a simultaneous, two-handed manipulation. Vincent watched intently, meaning to memorize the sequence but after a few seconds realized he had to give up. Seri leaned close to Vincent while Erik worked.

"Stop scaring him, will you?" she whispered, "We've got him, he wants to help now."

Vincent raised an eyebrow at her. "Did what you had to do?"

"Hey, I'm just charming by nature."

"And I'm scary by nature."

Her face was momentarily stunned into blankness, then spread into a smile of surprised delight.

"You know what, I like you Vincent Valentine."

"I advise against it."

"Too late," she said as something in Erik's panel sprung free, and the massive door four meters high and at least two meters wide glided soundlessly open. A breeze came up against their backs, as if willing them through the opening.

"She sucks," Erik said. Both his companions looked at him questioningly. He shrugged his shoulders. "During the day she blows, at night she sucks."

With no better explanation forthcoming, Seri looked to Vincent, confused.

"Maybe a thermal thing." Vincent said, remembering similar statements about caves. "It's a big structure, if it doesn't have many openings the denser, cooler air, whether inside or out would rush toward the warmer air through the door when it's opened. At night, it's the outside air that's cooler, during the day, it's the inside air. Hard to believe it's that airtight though. Maybe it's from something else."

They stepped through the door three abreast into a cavernous room. The moonlight barely covered them for a few steps inside, then the door, which had been swinging home with eerie silence, shut tight with an ominous thud. Immediately the room lit with a soft green glow, emanating from a column in the center of the room over a meter in diameter.

"Don't ask," Erik preempted. "We don't know how it works."

"Is it safe to touch?" Seri asked.

"I think so. It's in some kind of tube."

Seri stepped over and laid her hand on the surface.

"Feels like glass." She peered into the green depths.

"It's moving fast in there," Vincent observed. "If it's a tap out of a mako well under us there must be a hell of a lot of it down there. Shin-Ra would love to get a hold of this."

"We know. And we really don't want them here."

Seri gave him a sympathetic look. "Where does it go?"

Erik shrugged his shoulders.

"It doesn't fly out into the sky in a big green plume every time you open the door, does it?'

"Pretty sure someone would have noticed that," Erik said.

"Maybe it's just circulating," Vincent volunteered.

Seri pressed the side of her face to the tube so her left eye was as close to the surface as possible, peering upward. "There are things in there..."

Vincent grabbed her upper arm and pulled her away from the intoxicating green glow. She continued to stare at the column.

"Are there always things in there?"

"I don't get that close to it," Erik said, with an expression that made it clear no sane person would.

She looked at Vincent, who continued to drag her away from the magically glowing tube but refused to return her gaze. He appeared to have gone off elsewhere in his mind. She continued to stare at him until he answered.

"There are always things in the raw stream. Best not to look to hard."

"Oookay," she said, looking to Erik. "Where to?"

"Well, this is where the tricky part starts," he said, with poorly concealed pride. "You see the six tunnels?" He gestured to six identical, evenly spaced rectangular holes along the curved wall. "Behind every one is a maze; you could get lost in there and never find your way out. The three on the left we don't know where they go, other than 'rooms with mechanical equipment' or something like that. There was an old timer who knew the paths but his memory got bad before he taught someone else. Our charter forbids us to write anything down, so it has to be in our heads." He tapped the side of his temple in an almost comical fashion. "I always meant to go investigate them myself, but, you know, life."

A shadow crossed Erik's face, and Vincent was pretty sure the man was thinking of his small family. A small knot of guilt welled up in his chest for having threatened them earlier, and with practiced coldness he squeezed the feeling out of existence. He needn't worry about that now. He'd pay double for it later, when all was quiet and such things revisited him.

"But you know the way to special door?" Seri prompted.

"Oh yeah," Erik said, brightening some, "I have to come every few days, to check on the pond. That's my job, because I'm the youngest. It's quite a trek, with the water and all."

He had explained the pond earlier, a clear pool that never flowed but never fouled. The Bridge Keepers were sure it needed to be kept full, so water was brought in to replace what evaporated, but the purpose of the pool was a mystery.

"While I'm here I always run all three, just for practice. So I don't forget. The pool is in the tunnel third from the right and the next just leads to a big empty room. The one on the end..." he sucked in his breath. "That's to the door."

They followed Erik into the dark opening, and as they walked small tubes snaking along the corner made by the floor and the right-hand wall illuminated their way, flanking them with green stripes so pale they were nearly white. The light started a few meters ahead of them and faded out a few meters behind.

"Hell of a plumbing job," Seri remarked.

The darkness ahead of them was so black that even Vincent could see little into it, and it occurred to him that should their guide make use of some unknown feature in the tunnel they could quickly loose him. He closed the distance to Erik to where he was sure he could reach out and grab the guy if he so much as twitched.

"Could you not hover? You're making me nervous!" Erik took a step away from Vincent. Then he felt Seri's warm arm slide inside of his, her body leaning close.

"Hey, it's OK," she said, "We just need to be sure you don't loose us in here. How about if I hover instead?"

"Well, better than him."

Seri gave his arm a friendly squeeze and they walked along like old friends, lovers even. Vincent allowed himself to back off a pace, falling out of their warm sphere of companionship. The pale glow of the tubes was brighter around them than it was where Vincent was, maybe because they were two and he was one, or maybe for some other reason. It didn't matter, he needed very little light, and he knew the dim background was the better place for him.

He let himself fall back farther still, and at three paces behind the couple it was clear to him that his life force was not triggering the light tubes at all. The darkness enveloped him, like an old familiar sorrow, and here he maintained his distance. He could observe and not be seen, bathed in this comfortable invisibility. But he remained close enough so that even if Seri couldn't hold Erik, she would slow him down enough for Vincent to get at him should he decide to bolt. But he suspected she could hold him. Maybe not by sheer strength, but he had the distinct feeling he hadn't seen her entire skill set. He now wished he had asked. Maybe he should just attack her to find out.

The twisted absurdity of his own thought train made him rolls his eyes at himself in the dark. Vincent turned his focus to their meandering path. His sense of direction was good, exceptional even, but after the first five minutes he could no longer keep track of the turns. Every twenty meters there was another choice of tunnel. There was no distinguishable pattern to which they chose, and every tunnel appeared identical. If there weren't other destinations then most of the turnoffs must either loop back or dead end. Probably loops. Loops would be the more confusing. Already Vincent was starting to loose the feeling that they were even averaging in any particular direction.

"You ever get lost in here?" Seri asked Erik.

"Almost did, once. I made a wrong turn, or forgot one, actually. Remembered it two turns later. I don't know how I managed to remember, but I backtracked two turns and then continued."

"But you couldn't have known you were right until you got to the end."

"Yeah. It was a pretty awful half an hour."

Time was difficult to monitor in that uniform environment, but Vincent guessed they had been walking for more than a half an hour already. Maybe about 45 minutes.

**«41 miημτες»**

Vincent grimaced in the dark and was glad he couldn't be seen. Somehow the idea of a demon, essentially an immortal and therefore timeless entity, that was obsessed with time always had seemed perverse to Vincent. This one, a class one demon which meant plenty deadly but of limited powers, had a simple mind and called itself 'Death Gigas', a name not unearned.

**«103 τμrης. righτ, righτ, lεfτ, righτ, lεfτ, lεfτ... »**

_QUIET!_ Vincent hollered inside his own head. The thing was also some sort of idiot savant when it came to counting anything and if he let it rattle on it would drive him nuts. In fact that's probably why it did it.

His thoughts were interrupted when quite suddenly the path ended at what looked like a wall of smoother stone and inlaid glass that created sweeping, organic patterns.

"Oh, this is definitely Cetra," Seri leaned forward excitedly.

Vincent stepped forward and ran a forefinger along the seam between the rough hewn tunnel wall and the Cetra wall. Erik jumped as though he had forgotten the gunman was with them. Vincent suspected the man hoped they had lost him in the tunnel.

Seri leaned close and peered at the door in the dim light. She couldn't see any features on it, nor could she see no way around this roadblock. She looked at Erik quizzically.

"This is just an ordinary door, no lock," Erik said, "I guess if you get this far there's no point. But the handle is really well hidden..."

Vincent reached forward and grabbed the inset handle camouflaged by the intricate patterns and dim light, and pushed the door open. Erik Snortland made a small disgusted noise and ducked through.

"Showoff," Seri grunted at Vincent before she too went through.


	8. Surprises

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. Although recently he offered to give me Chaos.

**A/N: Vincent's most interesting demon is starting to give him some trouble in this chapter. I take some of my inspiration for my version of Chaos from Angeal Valentine, specifically her fics _Moon Child _and it's sequel **_**Megami no Senshi**_

The room opened up before them, enormous and bathed in the same white-green light that had been lighting their way. Vincent drew his weapon, instinctively approaching the new space with caution. He stepped close to the cobbler/Bridge Keeper, whatever their guide was, in case some trick was in store. But he needed have worried. The two other people in the room were huddled at the far side with their backs to the door, their attentions completely absorbed by a large, colorful object before them.

"Well I'll be damned," Erik said, stumbling forward, voice full of wonder.

The two observers whirled around in alarm, looking both surprised and somehow guilty. The larger, who Vincent now recognized as Jansen, was the first to recover and contract his face in anger at the intrusion of the strangers.

"Erik", Jan Jansen growled, "What have you done?"

Erik looked sharply back to his new companions, then to his fellow Bridge Keepers, unable to speak.

"Good evening, Sheriff," Seri said as she walked past him, ignoring his hostile stare. She was fixated on the large rectangle set into the wall behind them. It was swirling between predominantly red, green, and blue. "The rainbow bridge," she said.

"They... they can't be here!" Jansen said.

Seri turned and smiled at him. "Easy Sheriff. You might need our help. How long has it been doing this?" she motioned toward the swirling lights.

Jansen sputtered a moment in protest, but finding no strength or resolve in the faces of his own people he sighed in final resignation. "About an hour and a half," he said.

"Just like this?" Seri asked, "Just the same swirling colors?"

"Just the same," Jansen said, cutting his eyes over to Vincent, who had yet to put away his firearm.

"Maybe we should try to pass something through it." Seri began to look around for something to throw. A whisper of red flashed between Jansen and the bridge-door and Vincent had Seri by the wrist just as she picked up a small rock near one of the walls.

"Oh no you don't!" Vincent warned, "We don't know what this thing does."

Seri's mouth hung open in shock to have the vacant air around to her to be so abruptly and entirely full of Vincent. Then she pursed her lips in frustration and glared at him.

"You have no sense of adventure," she said acidly.

"You have no sense."

"Better ideas?" Seri waited, still fondling the stone.

Vincent turned away from her and went to the door, examining closely the rock around the edges, over the top, on the floor. He paced back and forth, peering through at every angle while the three Bridge Keepers from Bifröst muttered in low nervous voices. After several minutes of this Seri began to lose patience.

"Ah, hell," she said, and tossed her small rock through the door just as it cycled to red. The area filled with an intense red light that washed all five of them backward like so many pebbles under an ocean wave.

cccccccccccc

_**Wake uuuup, Valentine!**_

Vincent sent a mental growl to the recesses of his mind where the beast Chaos lived. It was constant mental battle for the two of them- as far as Vincent could tell Chaos never wanted to sleep at the same time he did. His nights were filled with prodding from the damn demon until he woke enough to exert the mental will needed to force quiet, quiet that held only until sleep came and then demon could start its game again.

_**Wake up, you moron, before you get us killed. Someone is coming. **_

Vincent yanked eyelids open, realizing this was actually one of the 'helpful' communications. Perhaps selfish, but helpful. The last thing he remembered was Seri pitching a rock through the bridge-door. He made a mental note to point out that her parents made a monstrous error naming her. They would have done better to find some name that meant impatient and reckless. Vincent rolled part of his body off of something pointy that had been stabbing him in the back for what he gauged to be at least an hour.

**«ςεv****εητy-τώo miημτες»**

He managed to move one hand to his thigh, where Cerberus was holstered. His fingers felt thick and clumsy, unable to feel the grip through the soggy numbness and barely able to tug the weapon free. He blinked repeatedly at a group of blurry figures moving through the door.

"Oh no, you don't."

One of the figures darted forward, and with a swift kick sent Cerberus skittering away from Vincent on the stone floor. He heard a female voice break out into hysterics, and several only slightly more calm people who all tried to talk at once. Then the figure near him gave a curt command and the people quieted, one with a distinctive muffle of hand over mouth, a sound Vincent immediately recognized as a _captive_. Vincent blinked again and shook his head, trying to clear his vision. His ears were likewise fuzzy and he strained to hear if any of his party had stirred. It didn't seem so, but he heard the next statement clearly:

"Daddy!" Followed by a child's sob.

Somebody hushed the child as Vincent struggled to sit up, enough so he could see four guns pointed his way.

_**Now??**_

_Not yet,_ Vincent soothed. If he let the demon out now he might not learn things that needed learning. His vision had cleared enough by now to see the new group was five people with same dress and demeanor as the motorcycle riders from earlier, one of them with a gun on what looked like a local woman while another restrained a young boy.

_What is it with these guys and children? _Vincent thought.

_**Now?**_

**.ИО, MY TUЯИ!.**

_Hush!_ Vincent clenched his teeth. Fine time for Hellmasker to start speaking up. He was the last thing needed it this tense and delicate situation.

A woman from the group broke away and ran to one of the downed figures. A hand signal from their leader halted a man from pursuing her.

"Erik!" the woman sobbed, rolling Erik over and shaking him. The boy sobbed again and Vincent began to understand the situation. This would be Erik's wife and child, brought at gunpoint to the party. As to how they had navigated the temple's labyrinth of tunnels? A detail that had bothered Vincent earlier came back into his mind. Earlier in the cobbler's house, Erik had said there were four bridge keepers, but had only listed two in addition to himself. Vincent should not have let that one go, and wondered if he was getting soft in his old age. But it was a funny thought, because he knew in reality he was only getting more cynical. The real reason he had not pushed Erik on the point was that he had been trying to string him along, and pushing is often counter productive to that effort. Erik's _wife_ was obviously the fourth keeper. Vincent, still seated, turned his attention to the man who deprived him of his favorite weapon, obviously the leader of this new group.

"Well, this is an interesting surprise," the leader said, sounding anything but surprised. Interested, amused maybe, but it was a voice that sounded unacquainted with surprise.

"Gave the bridge a poke, did you? While it was red?" The leader chortled.

Vincent watched him with narrowed eyes, noticing the man held himself sideways to the color-pulsing door, keeping his eye on Vincent even though he was so obviously interested in the door. In fact he kept the whole room in his periphery as he strolled about calmly. A bit of hair rose on the back of Vincent's neck- this one was dangerous. The rest of the group looked like clod-hoppers, not fighters, not like this leader. His movements were too fluid, his alertness too high. And his heart rate too low. He was neither sweating nor giving off a fear scent; quite the opposite. He was completely confident. Vincent would have to take him out first, and he considered his backup gun, small, hidden in a special holster on his lower leg. Vincent could draw faster than most men could see, but he had caught the mild glow in the leader's eyes behind the delicate glasses. The man was enhanced, and to what level, and how much speed was under that cool exterior, there was no telling in advance. Vincent let his body settle, relaxing and waiting, casually moving his hands towards his feet so as to shorten the distance for his draw.

"UP!" The leader shouted at Vincent with sudden ferocity, "Stand up right now or we shoot the boy!"

Vincent complied, slowly, trying to effuse his own calm over the suddenly trigger happy looking group. So much for the "casually going for the backup gun" plan.

"Hands up." The leader's eyes blazed mako green now, his words crisp with the authority of one used to being obeyed.

Vincent obeyed, putting his hands up and away from anything useful. To both sides of him his people were recovering. He thought of the three keepers and Seri as his people, but in truth, for all he knew, with this new turn of events he might be at odds with some or all of them. It hadn't mattered much to Vincent before, as long as he knew he held such a clear upper hand, but now the situation was quite different. Where did their true loyalties stand? To each other, some more strongly than others. Seri was the most of an outsider besides himself; she was still his best bet as a true ally. The family would prioritize each other. Erik's wife was blubbering all over him. She was shaking, and breathing irregularly in gasps and coughs. From where he stood Vincent could smell her sickness- a decay, something in her chest. Probably cancer.

"Erik, they came to the house..." she sobbed, then coughed, "I didn't know what else to do, I don't know how they knew to look for me...!"

"They were looking for me," Erik said groggily.

"Yes, indeed," the leader said, smiling now. Vincent thought the man was enjoying himself. "To think all these weeks you've been leading us along, 'helping' us to find this mysterious temple keeper, and you knew who they were all along. Were one yourself. I'm impressed."

Animosity rose from Erik's fellows at his side, and his wife fell away from him.

"Erik, why?" She said, voice soft like a child's.

"Money," he said, voice flat.

Vincent sighed ever so slightly. It always came down to this, not something dramatic or interesting; rather the most ordinary aspects of humanity. The weak link always broke out of need, greed, or desperation. He didn't know how they had met and then got their hooks into the cobbler, and he supposed it didn't much matter. Vincent knew almost exactly what the next thing Erik would say.

"I needed to get you to the city, to a hospital, for some real medical treatment. I only meant to give a little information, then we take what I got and run. But they kept holding back, only giving part of the money until I found something more out. I didn't know anyone would get hurt!"

"Somebody always gets hurt," a new voice croaked from the floor where a temple keeper, a truly ancient fellow that Vincent had yet to hear from but had to be Arnis Avery, retired rancher, was struggling up from the floor. "Where great power exists people always get hurt. That is the _reason_ the keepers have kept it secret for generations beyond count! Gods damn me for picking such fools to assist me!"

The old man glared at Erik, who shrunk back into the floor, his eyes locked on his wife's, both pairs full of fear and shame. The leader had never taken his attention fully from Vincent, never given him the opening he needed. Now, bored with the little drama, he turned to face Vincent fully and locked eyes with him, apparently finding no discomfort in Vincent's intense, red glare.

"What do you want?" Vincent asked, feeling ridiculous to be the only one standing around with his hands still in the air.

"What everyone should want, Vincent Valentine. Oh, don't be surprised that I know your name. You are a character mighty hard to miss. With a name difficult to forget."

"And you are?"

"The Shepherd will do for a name. But as for who I am? I am the redeemer of this planet, that's who. I am about to restore its very health and spirit, to erase the poisonous filth of ShinRa, to undo its sins.

"You mean to release the curse of Odin?"

The Shepherds eyebrows rose in surprised appreciation.

"That's what lies beyond the door, isn't it?" Vincent asked. "More destruction? You can't redeem the spirit of anything with destruction."

"Ah, you misunderstand me," the Shepherd smiled broadly now, his face alight and stunningly beautiful, the same way any venomous thing is beautiful in its horrific potential.

"I too have learned that lesson. I tried more than once to destroy ShinRa, to stop its poisoning of the planet. I recruited idealistic followers and as warriors we fought, and in the end my efforts only added to the planet's damage because they required the same poisoned efforts, fire against fire to fight ShinRa, as it were."

Vincent looked harder at the Shepherd while a description, sketches from Tifa when she was helping fill in the world history he had missed, and scrap of memory coalesced to form a man he had never met.

"Fuhito," he said softly, soft enough so the others probably couldn't hear.

Now the Shepherd showed actual surprise, his smile falling only a moment before re-emerging. Only this new smile was less natural, less amused, and Vincent knew he had guessed correctly. Fuhito Hori, one of the original founders of Avalanche. Brilliant, immoral, and possibly insane.

"I heard you were dead," Vincent said.

"There's dead and there's dead," Fuhito said, regaining his good humor. "And then there's that area in between, when the Lifestream flows around and through you, where one can see and learn of many things. Things old, things forgotten. Did you never wonder where those wonderful summon creatures came from? I'm sure you've used them, creatures of great power, bending inexplicably to your will?"

Though Vincent had wondered a great many times about that very thing, he didn't answer. It was not actually a question that expected an answer. Plus he had to take a moment to press more control over his emotional state, something inside was building up a very quiet, very intense anger and he didn't think it was him.

"They aren't supposed to be here on our world, slave to anyone with enough will to control the materia they are chained to. They are prisoners, damned by others of their kind, justly or not."

Fuhito continued but now Vincent had to take his attention entirely away. He had identified the source of this inner boiling fury as Chaos began to voice it to him

_**Bastards! Chained and Prisoner to the likes of YOU! You've no RIGHT to hold one of the Guardians!**_

Vincent didn't argue, arguing was useless when Chaos got like this and the only thing to be done was to exert every internal pressure he had to keep the demon from thrashing his body around from the inside. He couldn't make him shut up, though. Vincent did his best to tune out the ranting. And ignore the headache it produced.

"...and Odin is one such, deemed a hazard to himself and others." Fuhito continued. If he had listed others, Vincent had missed it. "Odin made something, maybe it was organic, maybe a machine, but a thing that would undo everything. Not destroy, mind you. To wind _time_ backwards."

Fuhito smiled and leaned closer to Vincent.

"Tell me Vincent Valentine, is there nothing in your past you wouldn't like... erased?"

The comment gave Vincent such a start that that he momentarily slipped his control from Chaos and it came out on his face. It came out as a small tic, and Fuhito's smile broadened, wicked and triumphant.

"You wish to erase ShinRa," Vincent said, flat and emotionless control back in place.

"Hmm, I'm afraid I've... broadened my scope since my Avalanche days."

"A mass suicide for your followers as well as humanity? How original."

"Oh no," Fuhito said. "I'm not so demoralized as all that. I believe our species can be saved, just not on this course. They need a new course; one set in the early days of humanity, before any forms of technology take hold."

"With you, no doubt, on the top of this new world order."

Fuhito didn't answer; he didn't need to. They both knew Vincent spoke the obvious. The other thing that was obvious to Vincent was that if Fuhito intended to become emperor of some new world order he needed more staff than what he saw here. He had a base somewhere, somewhere close. And some way to protect that base, or at least the people in it, from this proposed time warping.

"Temen, come over here, my dear," Fuhito said. "Bring the box."

A tall man approached, long thin fingers clutching some sort of electronic box about the size of a small brick.

"You have a reputation, my friend, for some theatrical summoning," Fuhito addressed Vincent. "We don't need any of that here. This device nullifies any materia you might have on you."

Vincent thought of the single green piece he'd been lugging around. He hadn't been planning on using it. He was still hoping to shoot Fuhito. Right in his smug little forehead. But as the long fingers of the man holding the electronic brick flipped a switch, Vincent heard, or rather, since thing made no sound, he _felt_ something winding down inside him. Whatever it was, this peculiar weakening was loosening the bonds he was using to restrain the already agitated Chaos. He was vaguely aware of both other men frowning at him, puzzled, as he clenched his face and body in a last desperate grasp at control before Chaos exploded out of him, completely untethered and out of control.

The explosion of wing, wind, and sheer bulk knocked both Fuhito and Temen back, Temen dropping the electronic box in his hasty retreat and kicking it off to one side where it lodged in a corner. The rest of the room stood momentarily frozen, staring at the sudden emergence of a blood-red creature that spewed ferocity and malevolence. It howled and every human in the room clamped hands over their ears, their own shouts of protest lost in the overwhelming din. Then rocks, small and large, shot across the room as the creature wildly thrashed in a berserk fit, swiping pieces of the stone wall loose behind him. Temen moved, going for the box and catching Chaos' attention. Instantly the enraged creature leapt on Temen, tearing violently until clothing was shredded and blood and bits of flesh sprayed in crazy directions. This seemed to knock the remainder of Fuhito's group out of their stupor and all six opened fire. Chaos curled away from the stinging offenses, howling anew.

Vincent, still inside this force of destruction, was struggling and failing to reassert any control over it. He felt the gathering of dark energy that Vincent knew would explode out over everyone in the room with heartless impartiality. He quickly changed tactics from trying to force Chaos to nudging him in some direction.

_Cerberus!_ he suggested; the weapon was on the ground not far away. At least the gun was an attack he had some hope of directing.

Chaos scooped the weapon up, and as always in Chaos's hands it also underwent a transformation, expanding and hardening fiendishly even as Chaos brought it to bear on the knot of shooters. He blasted six of the enhanced rounds into the gunmen, completely obliterating the group. Vincent had the presence of mind to notice that the boy was no longer among them; a detail that he knew would have had no influence on Chaos' behavior. Chaos had no morality of his own, and when Erik Snortland moved to better cover his wife Chaos' taloned hand reached out and viciously swatted him. The blow was so hard it knocked Erik a good ten feet towards the bridge, where he tumbled through the luminous green doorway.

The opposite was triggered by this intrusion to the bridge; the room filled with green light that sucked everything towards it. Rocks near Chaos' feet jerked towards the green magnet as Chaos dug toes and talons into the stone floor, scraping large divots into its surface. Those more off to the side of the door fared better as the pull was weaker there, until there appeared to be a safety zone along the wall to each side. Chaos unfortunately found himself dead center in front of it. Vincent was unable to stop from enjoying a small reversal of their roles.

_Nice going, what was it you called me earlier- moron?_

Chaos growled and dug into the floor more deeply, his wings now uncomfortably pulled behind him as they stretched towards the great, green, sucking door. There was a small yell as Seri lost her grip on whatever she was hanging onto and began to slide towards the bridge. She scrambled frantically with hands and feet against the rough stone, pushing herself sideways and out of the strong pull of the door. She had almost made it in the clear, Erik's wife surprisingly reaching out to help, when Chaos lunged over and grabbed her.

_What are you doing? _Vincent demanded with the only voice he had, his mental voice inside of Chaos.

_**singer**_was the only reply he got. It was the first intelligent communication from Chaos since he started his little rampage, but the rationale was not rational. Chaos was an intelligent being, but Vincent had observed that when the demon went into these rages his brains went to shit. Chaos had probably grabbed Seri simply because he wanted to do it. With two more powerful lunges he was out the door with his prize, who kicked, yelled, and bit him repeatedly on the arm. Fists swung down and pummeled his groin, but the demon was as impervious to this as anything else. His dense flesh had already squeezed and pushed most of the bullets free, the last two or three plinking onto the floor as he moved down the hallway, midnight black now, the green glowing tubes now failing to light their way. Using his powerful arms and large wings he reorganized Seri until she was completely immobilized and faced outward so she could no longer bite. Not that it stopped her from trying.

_Chaos, where are you going? _Vincent used a calm mental voice, even as he continued to struggle to take control.

_**pool**_ was all he got in response.

Chaos moved quickly, sometimes back tracking, searching, smelling, feeling without knowing where he was going. Finally he stopped in the middle of a tunnel, uncertain. He took the transformed firearm and fired four times right at the wall. Then he threw his shoulder into the fractured crater he had caused and tumbled through the rock into the chamber beyond. This room was bathed in colored light, shifting in the now familiar red, to green, to blue. Chaos dropped Seri in a heap and fell with a splash into the pool, letting his wings fan out over its surface and muting the colored light emitting from it.

Seri sat up, looking dazed and wiping at a bleeding gash in her forehead, probably from the wall breaching maneuver. Her eyes locked onto the big red demon, now lounging in the sacred temple pool like it was his personal tub. She carefully tried to scoot backwards, towards the hole they came from and Chaos growled, stopping her progress. But Vincent sensed a shift in his mood, his rage was burning out and the cool water was calming him down, soothing him. A little more and calm and Vincent might be able to get control.

_Ask her to sing,_ he suggested.

"Sing," Chaos said, so simultaneous with the thought that Vincent wondered if he had commanded something at last. He tried to make Chaos relinquish his physical form and got nothing. He tried for voice again.

_the same song as..._

"The same song as earlier," Chaos said, right in time with Vincent's thoughts. Interesting.

Seri looked as though she might be too freaked out to comply, but she started to sing, barely a croak but following the melody. The song must have soothed her as well, because she started to sing out more clearly, although she had shut her eyes to do it. Now listening with Chaos' ears Vincent heard the thing that was maybe doing the trick- a strange modulation between melody and rhythm that Chaos seemed to think was sound of... the planet? It filled him with nostalgia and a sad longing. But it was a trick of music that maybe could be learned by anybody. Vincent had to laugh a little at the thought of singing _himself_ to sleep, as he did so he noticed he was... himself again. Chaos was quiet now, and Vincent was in control, but he could feel the thinness of that control, as if he moved it might shatter. Then something clunked inside of him and his full control returned, normalcy returned. Or as normal as things could be, given the circumstances. But damn if Chaos' romp hadn't left him exhausted, dizzy, and stiff. And soaking wet.

Vincent rose slowly, water running off his shoulders and hair, and Seri's eyes snapped open, the soothing melody abruptly stopping. But it was OK now; he missed it, but he didn't need it. He stepped to the rim of the pool, staggered, stepped on his cloak without getting so much of a growl from Chaos for it, stumbled again and fell on the floor near the still stunned Seri.

"Fuck," he said, hauling himself up on hands and knees.

Seri reached forward with trembling hands to stabilize him, and they both sat up to stare at one another.

"Alright," she said, "that surprised me."

**A/N: I could find no last name for Fuhito. So I just gave him the name of this Japanese Physicist that I read about who studies antimatter. If anybody knows a canonical second name for him, let me know.**


	9. Dark

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. Too bad.

A child's wail cut through the ethereal quiet of the pool room and both Vincent and Seri stood up, Vincent still shaking off his dizziness.

"That's Elias," Seri said, "Erik's boy!"

She clambered back through the Chaos-sized hole in the wall and ran towards the sound. Vincent followed, stumbling once, then catching his stride and bursting into a sprint so as not to loose her. He turned a corner ran square into her, sending them both again to the stone floor.

"Be still!" Vincent hissed, trying to get a directional sense on the intermittent cries of the child. He was having difficulty because of some very noisy panting next to him. He couldn't see Seri as the light tubes were still not functioning. Vincent shut his eyes, squeezed the lids momentarily to make sure they were shut, then opened them again. It was somewhat disorienting, even for the man who had lain so long in black slumber, to see darkness so complete that there was no difference between eyes open and closed.

_Galian,_ he directed his thoughts, _Bring that hunter's vision up here for me._

The thing ignored him, and in response Vincent sent a brutal mental stab by imagining a long pointy spear sinking into a large, blue, furry, butt. There was a smattering of distinctly unfriendly laughter from the others, and then a sharp grunt of protest as a red aura filled the bottom of his vision from his own body heat. He looked towards the panting sound and saw Seri, highlighted not in color but by thermal grades that his brain somehow interpolated into an image. Her nose stood out, cooler than the rest of her face, her hair obscured, and lips oddly outlined. She was staring bug-eyed into the dark, her chest heaving frantically with her panting.

"What's wrong with you?" He demanded, but she appeared not to hear him. Vincent squinted in annoyance. He could understand the child crying, probably afraid of the dark or something. But good Gaia, could a grown woman be afraid of the dark as well? Vincent reached out to grab her arm, and then thought better of it. In her current state she would probably start screaming or something. So instead he brought out his single piece of green materia. It was glowing slightly, and he hoped that meant the box Fuhito had brought was either not functioning or out of range.

He mentally encouraged the orb until the area between them blossomed into a soft, greenish glow. Seri's terrified eyes locked on his and the breathing slowed to a less frantic pant.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," she gasped out on exhales.

"I thought only children were afraid of the dark," Vincent said.

Seri was getting herself under control, and managed a little wry smile. "Children and POWs that were kept in pitch black crates."

Vincent immediately felt bad for his flippant comment. He of all people should know better than to make light of someone else's torments and fears.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Seri put her face in her hands as her breathing slowed, and Vincent heard her humming softly.

_**Jerk**_Chaos intoned, sounding sleepy now.

Vincent frowned. It was embarrassing to be rebuked by the likes of Chaos in the realm of manners. He put his right hand on Seri's dusty hair, feeling that she still shook slightly. The boy was still wailing for attention somewhere in the labyrinth, but he couldn't leave Seri alone, and she didn't seem ready to move.

"I guess it's post-traumatic-stress-whatever," Seri said. "It wasn't just the lack of light, there was no sound either, even sounds I tried to make." Seri talked, maybe simply to fill the air around herself with voice. "I didn't even know very much of interest for the interrogators. The weirdest thing was I think it would have actually been worse without the... visits from the Soldiers. Their horrible, glowing eyes were at least something to see, and they were... something to feel, even if it was pain."

Vincent's hand fell away and she looked up into his own strange and glowing eyes.

"None of them ever had red, though. And one of them let me go, after..." She licked her lips. "He looked sad." Seri smiled at Vincent, apologetic for reasons she herself didn't quite understand.

Vincent held out his hand and helped her stand. He knew what she was describing- a depravation chamber, a box six or eight foot on a side, insulated against light and sound and with a special dampening field inside so even the prisoner's own voice was mute. It was no wonder she was hyper-sensitized to the dark. The thing was a standard Turk tool, but he supposed even Soldier could be trained to use such a simple device for intelligence gathering. As for the "visits"- he knew what that meant too. There was never a war fought by men where the strong did not rape and take what they wanted. But there was nothing he or anyone could do about that. Coddling her over it would help neither of them right now.

"Come," he said coldly, curtly. Deep inside his chest he felt a self-satisfied,_**I-knew-you-were-a-bastard-all-along**_ smugness directed towards him. He ignored Chaos and led Seri, one hand holding hers and the other holding the light-effusing materia aloft. After several turns they located the child, who immediately ran toward them and the light, wrapping both arms with a boa-constrictor-like death grip around one of Vincent's legs. Vincent tried without success to peel the child from himself without damaging him, and in desperation he gave his leg a little shake, which only caused the boy to start crying again.

"Shh, it's going to be OK." Seri knelt down and the boy, Elias, swapped Vincent's thigh for her neck and she picked him up. As the feeling returned to Vincent's leg he wondered how Seri was managing to stay conscious with such a death gripping leach around her neck. And also to say such things to the boy. There was no guarantee that anything was going to be OK. In fact it probably wasn't, at least not for this little one.

"We need to get back to the Bridge room," Vincent said, leading and alone now that the other two had one another to cling to.

The Bridge room was silent when the reached it. The bridge/door was still placidly turning from red, to blue, to green, the colored light now undiluted by the automated light tubes that accompanied them when they first entered.

Vincent stepped over six gunmen, quickly perusing their weapons in case he wanted any of them. They were all the same, uninteresting quality and caliber of the one he had picked up earlier in the day, which now lay wedged out of sight up under a dresser in his room. Plus these guns were mostly empty, their slides locked open in what always reminded Vincent of the way eyes often stuck open in death, a confirmation of the body's uselessness. He found two with a few of rounds still in them, and took a moment to collect ammunition and add it all to one magazine. He did this all in less than a second, mostly one handed, and without looking. He slapped the butt of the magazine home against his thigh and handed the weapon to Seri, who took it somewhat cautiously.

"What?" he asked, "Are you not used to guns?"

"I am, it's just... everything." Seri had wanted to say "just you" but didn't. Vincent was a lot stranger than she had bargained for. She had also seen some of that strangeness out of control, and now she was alone and lost in this dark maze, completely dependent on him. She dropped the gun into a cargo pocket on her pants.

On the far side of the room lay the inert forms of Sherriff Jansen and the elder Bridge Keeper. Vincent knelt down to check life signs. Both were dead, and he was unsure if he had been responsible. Or rather, to what degree he was responsible. He followed the blood markings on their clothes and found evidence of small caliber bullets. Not his weapon, probably bullets from Fuhito's gunmen while they were firing at Chaos. And there was something else missing. Besides Erik Snortland, who he remembered knocking through the door while in the grips of Chaos' rampage, but also that rat, Fuhito, was missing. Along with Erik's wife.

"Mommy?" the small boy in Seri's arms whispered. Seri looked to Vincent.

"There's no other exit for this room," Vincent said, "And they didn't go back out through the labyrinth; I'd have heard them." Vincent made a quick mental check with his four "guests", all who had different skills for detection. They agreed with his assessment. Three of them he could trust, in a way, not because they were cooperative, but because they had no choice. Their minds were painfully open to one another, a condition that Vincent often found disturbing, and probably the others thought the same of their connection with him. With the fourth and most dominant demon, Chaos, he hadn't this same penetration of thoughts. This Class Three, the most powerful of all demons, could keep his thoughts to himself. But Chaos chose to speak, a sensation which was often more disruptive than all the other three put together.

_**The went to Asgard, Vincent. Slipped away from you! Aaaasgaaard!**_

Vincent gritted his teeth. Chaos was clearly done with his napping, and back in the mood for taunting. It was pity, though, for all the bodies lying around that the demon couldn't have killed one more.

"I don't know if there's any truth in what Fuhito said, that he can unwrap time," Vincent said. "But I have to go after him." He watched the door change color. Broaching the Red had blown them across the room. Green and pulled them in uncontrollably. Time to try Blue. Vincent motioned for Seri to stay outside the entryway to the room with Elias as he picked up a small stone, and hardly believing he was about to do the very thing that had started all their trouble, pitched it through during the Blue phase. He braced himself, but the stone disappeared in a ripple and a small, pleasant, hum.

"Wait here," Vincent said. But Seri rushed forward, catching a foot and nearly tripping over a twisted arm of a dead man. She grabbed a piece of Vincent's cloak.

"Oh, no you don't. We can't find our way out of here, and if you don't come back we'll just have to follow you anyhow. We stick together."

Vincent considered and had to admit she was right. Annoying, pushy, but right. He looked at the boy, wide eyed and also with a small hand fisted into his cloak. The other hand was in front of his face, thumb stuffed into his mouth, seeking security.

"Together," he said, freeing his cloak from grasping hands and wrapping and arm around Seri, wedging the boy between them. "On the next Blue... now!"

They stepped quickly through, Seri closing her eyes as her face broke the colored surface, the small hum filling their ears like water. But Vincent heard more loudly inside his own head something additional that made the hair rise on the back of his neck.

_**Home!**_


	10. The Trouble with Asgard

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy or Vincent, and he wishes I would leave his personal life alone. Fat chance.

**A/N: There's a little bit of naughtiness here, but it's just an inevitable body function. Poor Vincent, it's not easy being him. And I'll ask for forgiveness beforehand, there's quite a few canonical references and I'm sure to have screwed at least one of them up. **

Seri opened her eyes an inhaled cold, clean air. They had come through into a vast hall with graceful arches of luminous glassy material, reaching four or five stories overhead. Sections between the arched ribs opened to what appeared to be the outside, and small gusts of wind trailed in thin lines of snow.

"It's similar to Cetra temple construction," Seri whispered, "but way bigger than anything they would build. Grander. "

Vincent made a quick check behind them to make sure the bridgedoor was still there. It was, and actively displaying its colors. He decided to designate the direction away from the door as forward and started in that direction. The place was completely silent save for intermittent echoing of wind, and Vincent's careful, normally silent steps clacked on the icy floor. Seri's soft soled boots thudded along beside him. Her foot crunched into a wedge of snow that had swept in from one of the many openings to the outside, and she looked towards this opening, then with mouth open walked slowly towards it. Vincent followed, stepping in her footprints in the snowdrift rather than make another telltale set and wishing she had not made this evidence of their presence. But he forgot all about footprints and gaped slightly as he looked out. A vast city stretched out under them, its beautiful, arched structures billowing up like lithe, glassy flowers. The scene was so alien, so clearly non-human, that all three humans, even the tiny one, were held fast with equal parts fear and awe. Although Vincent was feeling something else as well. Excitement. Familiarity. Longing tinged with sadness.

"The city of the gods," Seri said, softly dreamlike. "Where is everyone, I wonder?"

_**War**_

"Between the gods? To the point there were none left? Did they die?" Seri asked.

Vincent stared at her as she turned to look at him. He was sure he hadn't been the one who had spoken. Or had he?

_**They changed, moved on. All except the Guardians. They were bound to the physical world through materia links, so the planet might use them when needed.**_

Now Seri just stared at Vincent; since she was now looking at him she could see he hadn't spoken.

"Um, Vincent? I'm hearing voices in my head."

Vincent sighed. "Not your head. He's in my head. It's the large, winged demon you saw me transform into earlier. A Class Three, as bad as they get."

Seri stared at him opened mouthed for a moment. "That is so cool!" She blurted out, and, without warning, without asking permission, Seri grabbed Vincent with her free hand and put an ear to his chest, as if she might hear more of the demon there.

Vincent jerked away from her, horrified, and might have struck her if not for the small child she was holding.

"It is _not_ cool!" he protested, dimly aware that all four of his demons were now trying to talk at once, even Galian, who couldn't actually speak beyond animal noises. "And it's never happened before, that anybody else could hear him."

"Maybe it's this place," she said.

Vincent thought to himself that it maybe wasn't just this place. Chaos seemed to have developed a bizarre fixation on this Mariteen language student.

_**Not bizarre. You're just obtuse.**_

Vincent continued looking at Seri, making certain his face revealed nothing during this last thought exchange with Chaos, and after a moment decided Seri hadn't heard that last comment. Interesting. It seemed Chaos could control who heard him. Maybe he always could. Maybe he talked to people all the time and Vincent just hadn't caught on. Maybe because he was... obtuse.

"How many?" Seri asked, looking not at Vincent, not into his eyes, but down into him somehow. The look made him uneasy, the way the healing witch had. "Three... no, four. All distinct. Vincent, how do you concentrate?"

_**He doesn't.**_

Seri laughed a little and Vincent grabbed her arm, pulling her roughly back towards the hall.

"We should be looking for Fuhito and Odin," he said sharply, and the little boy made a small, nervous sound.

"Shhhh," Seri said, but followed Vincent's lead. She hummed to the boy as they walked and both the child and Vincent's interior landscape quieted.

_Can she hear my thoughts as well? _Vincent sent the mental question to whichever might answer. At least two of them laughed.

_**Don't be stupid. Not between humans, and you are humans. Mostly.**_

Then Chaos began to make a noise like Vincent had never heard before. It was rhythmic, though kind of rough sounding. Vincent thought maybe he was singing, imitating Seri's sounds. He sent several questions regarding where they were and what Chaos knew about it, but the demon had ceased his momentary cooperativeness.

They walked until they reached the end of the massive hall and found it opened into a circular room. It was sheltered from wind and the wisps of snow; warmer and far more inviting. As they broached the circle the area blazed with a light of indefinable gorgeous quality, as if light itself had taken on smells of cherished memory and the music of angelic harmony. The room was empty, but the stone walls were intricately decorated with inlays of colored marble, punctuated by velvety, midnight-black doorways spaced evenly every few feet. They were the kind of black Erik had described the bridgedoor to be, before it changed color. They approached the first and the black door lit with a slow-swelling, orange glow. A figure appeared behind the door, suspended and unmoving. Its overdeveloped muscular body was about two-thirds the height of a man, including the large horns sweeping out from the top of its head. Before Vincent could stop her, Seri reached to the glowing figure. Her hand passed through the figure, the orange light shimmering. Just a hologram, or something similar. Lettering had appeared above the image. Vincent couldn't read it – cetra lettering, but he didn't need to. He recognized the figure.

"It says... Hell and flame," Seri said. "Or fire. Hellfire?"

"It's Ifrit," Vincent said. "A summon creature, like Odin." He felt Chaos give a small, disgusted grunt.

Seri ran her fingers over the letters; they rippled as if they were made of water instead of light. "We have no guide to how the Cetra language is pronounced. Maybe these letter combinations, which I read as 'hellfire', are pronounced 'ifrit' ".

Vincent shrugged, he couldn't care less how some ancient language that nobody was ever going to speak again sounded. Seri bent down to scrutinize some lettering below the figure.

"It says something like 'status equal... idle'"

_**Sleeping**_

Seri nodded and reluctantly pulled herself to the next slot. A naked, blue woman with an elaborate headdress. "This one is also... sleeping. I can't read her name, some of the symbols I've seen in descriptive passages, something to do with a color, like.. opalescence."

"She's _**Shiva." **_Vincent and Chaos said simultaneously, which somehow annoyed Vincent far worse than the demon simply talking out of turn.

"She's also a... summon creature?" Seri asked.

_**She is a GUARDIAN! **_ Chaos snarled in such a way that Vincent winced and Seri leaned away from him.

They moved quickly through several more of these "cubby holes of the gods", some Vincent could identify and some he was sure the world of men had never seen. They came to one that contained not a hologram of an entity but a slowly revolving silver sphere.

"I know this one," Seri said. "Big dragon - Bahamut. It says he's... active."

"He's been summoned," Vincent said, a creeping worry filling his chest. There weren't many people were capable of summoning a Bahamut. Cloud maybe. If someone else summoned a Bahamut anywhere near Midgar, there was no way his friends would stay away from it. He worried if they were OK.

"He was summoned by...a person?" Seri was still trying to piece together this part of the world that she had always thought were myths. Strange tales of monsters that were actually controlled by humans instead of the planet.

"Yes. One with the right skills. If they have the right materia," Vincent said. Then, "Ohhhh."

Suddenly he grasped the larger picture. "Via the materia links, created so that the planet might use these 'Guardians'. They were never meant to be used by humans."

_**You actually thought otherwise?**_

Chaos sounded less indignant than genuinely surprised.

The next also had a revolving sphere, a red one. Seri read the flowing curves that made up the ancient letters. "Quite a description here. Lord of destruction, or maybe, 'violent discord'? And some letter groups related to death. "

_Is that you?_

Chaos didn't answer him, but Vincent knew it was true. Their thoughts may not have been automatically shared, but not everything could be hidden between them.

_Where is your materia?_

_**Idiot.**_

Vincent sighed. "Chaos," he said. "His name is Chaos."

Seri stared into Vincent's eyes, tracing the curve where the luminous red broke into startling white sclera, catching a bright gold thread rise and swirl at the edge of the iris.

"Chaos?" she said tentatively.

_**Hello.**_

Vincent turned his gaze, his nerves strangely jarred and heat rising in his face. He quickly passed several more figures, looking now only for Odin. He stopped at another absentee, only there was no ball in this one. It was empty, black, and lifeless feeling.

"It says father" Seri said simply.

"Odin," _**Odu-in!**_ Vincent and Chaos said with another one of those simultaneous communications that annoyed Vincent.

"Why is it empty?" Seri wondered out loud. "There's not even a ball."

_**His materia link has been broken**__. __**He's free**__. _

Vincent raised his eyebrows at this._ Free? So this is a prison? You were incarcerated with the rest of these?_

Chaos gave Vincent a little pain inducing jab, but Vincent smiled despite the sharp stabbing in his head. As planet creatures, his demons were beyond the reach of human laws and Vincent had always felt the burden of guilt on himself for their actions. It hadn't occurred to him that there might be some other, demon specific, realm of justice. And it seemed that it wasn't just in Vincent's world that Chaos had been ill-behaved.

"OK," Vincent said, thinking out loud. "Fuhito wanted something Odin had, something Odin made. He probably had Odin's materia link in his possession, but needed to come here physically for him, or maybe for the device. Maybe he freed Odin."

Vincent, sensed a change in Chaos. The demon had noticed something, or realized something.

_What? _Vincent demanded, but Chaos didn't want to tell. This potentially fell into the category of information he should 'extract from Chaos at all costs'. A short mental battle ensued, one Vincent knew he might win if persistent enough, and was willing to put up with all levels of pain. But Vincent Valentine was blessed with an enormous pain tolerance, even before the extra "practicing" he had gotten with Hojo. And he had the stubbornness to match any demon. He won this one and Chaos gave in.

_**Fuhito has a way to nullify materia- that box. Maybe it can break the materia link as well.**_

_Right. Is that why you were out of control earlier? The box temporarily nullified your link? Where is your materia? Is it here?_

Chaos growled and retreated, and Vincent decided to leave that battle for another day.

"So, where are they?" Seri asked, looking around. "Wouldn't we have seen them if they went back through the temple?"

Vincent gave Chaos another prod, even though they were both still sore from their last exchange.

_**Maybe at Odin's Hall. Across the city.**_

A map appeared in Vincent's mind, complete with knowledge of every street and building. Chaos had known this place well.

"Did you hear-"

"I heard," Seri interrupted him.

They left the warm, circular room and out to one of the openings to the outside. Vincent scoured the abandoned city of Asgard until he identified Odin's Hall, just a spec standing up tall on a small hill. It had to be at least 20 miles.

**«εighτεεη» **a delighted sounding Death Gigas informed him.

_Thank-you, Gigas. _ At least that one of them was in a good mood.

"Eighteen miles would take us hours even at good pace," Vincent said. "Odin probably had a transport method, maybe his big horse was "freed" along with him. They'd be moving fast."

"Can you... fly?" Seri asked, "With Chaos?"

"I could, but I don't want to leave you here." Vincent looked around once more, the place was deserted but it unnerved him far more than the temple outside of Bifröst had. Maybe because it wasn't supposed to be so silent. Outdoors carried with it the expectation of certain sounds, birds, trees rustling, something, anything. But here there was nothing, just the soulless wind.

"He can't carry you eighteen miles, besides, you'd both freeze if we flew through the air."

Seri had been rubbing her arms and now stopped, feeling conspicuous. She picked up Elias to help keep them both warm.

"I have another idea," Vincent said. He lowered his head to look directly at the boy.

"Your name is Elias, right?" he asked, trying to speak in a gentle, non-threatening tone. The boy nodded shyly.

"How old are you, Elias?" He asked, remembering that small children always seemed happy to answer that question. Elias was no exception.

"Four!" Elias said proudly, holding up four fingers.

Vincent made an effort to smile. It felt fakey and strange on his face but he hoped it would suffice. "Do you like... kittens?"

Elias nodded again, more enthusiastic this time.

"I'm going to get a friend of mine to help us. He's a really big... kitten."

The boy looked excited and Vincent tried not to grimace. Referring to the Galian Beast as a "kitten" was more than a stretch. With a warning gesture towards Seri to stay put, Vincent slipped behind one of the large columns and willed the most animal of his four demons forward. His skin itched, then burned as his body transformed into something more massive, his sense of self as a man shrinking until he was forced to abandon the notion of his own body or slip the boundary of insanity. He felt enormous, even more so than usual in this form. Galian wanted to loose a gargantuan roar of vitality and freedom and Vincent checked the impulse. But he could feel the searing power and energy, he felt he could run forever, do anything. It was, Vincent suspected, this place he was in. He felt fantastic, and did his best to dampen that feeling. It wasn't wise to feel so good in this form, even with his regular mood it was difficult to keep Galian from...

...too late.

The Beast was randy as hell on a normal day let alone one where he felt particularly good, and Vincent shifted uncomfortably as the enormous sexual organ swelled. More than ever Vincent was grateful for the residual of Chaos while in this form. That bit of inert wing hung outside of the Galian form as well, now wrapped around the beast's nether regions. It was perhaps a way for Chaos to assert dominance, but at the moment it was shielding a rather awkward condition. What happened to Vincent's own clothes while in this form was a mystery to him. He thought they might be under the skin somewhere.

The Galian Beast dropped to all fours and crept back into the room. Seri's eyes went wide but she managed not to react in the standard fashion i.e. screaming and running.

"Kitty!" the boy Elias squealed, and grabbed two handfuls of indigo blue fur.

Vincent swung the beast head to indicate for them to crawl onto his back. He had to crouch down extra low for this; Vincent had been right about the size. Galian was quite a bit bigger here. Seri grabbed a handful of the coarse ridge on his back and using only one arm while the other held Elias she swung herself up like an experienced Chocobo rider. While they settled in Vincent was annoyed that Galian was constantly trying to swivel his head around, until Seri reached forward and scratched at a spot between his horns. Vincent tried to be annoyed at this too, but damn, that felt... good. But he needed her to grab onto those horns, or something, and he couldn't speak while in this form.

_Tell her to hang on, _Vincent directed Chaos.

_**I can do better**_

And to Vincent's surprise and mild dismay the red cape loosed itself from its claps, flowing and expanding upwards until the two fully formed wings wrapped around the passengers on his back, pressing them tightly into the thick, warm thatch of fur. That left him and his animal privates exposed, but he supposed there was no one to see now that the only other people around were now both on his back.

_**Hang on. Going for a little run.**_

"Okeedoke," Seri said, wiggling to get better settled and squeezing Galian with her thighs. Vincent felt the beast's sex pulse with encouragement at the movement of warm, living bodies so close to him, and Chaos's wings tightened around her and the boy. He hoped those two reactions weren't _both_ related to arousal. He mentally jerked them both to reign them in. It was taxing him a bit to have two demons so physically active at once; prior to today he hadn't even known that was possible.

Something that sounded like a growling whine filled his throat and Vincent realized Galian was ready to go, more than ready, he was itching to run. _Right, _Vincent thought, _running would be just the thing right now, burn off some of that energy. _He leapt off the landing and down the long flight of stairs, bounding ten feet at a stretch. Galian often fought upright, but he had a fast and smooth gate on all fours. Within minutes they were in the heart of the city, racing past eerily silent buildings, all which had the same flowing, liquid lines and graceful construction. Ten, then twenty minutes passed by without a hint of fatigue from Galian and Vincent was starting to enjoy the rhythm, the speed, the feeling of sheer strength and vitality. He relaxed, feeling the demanding physical activity sap bloodflow from other, more inconvenient, areas.

_**Up the hill**_ Chaos directed once they had reached a section of the city populated with smaller structures that Vincent thought might be residences. Galian turned, racing up steps to a building far more ornate than anything surrounding it. Vincent would have been tempted to call it gaudy.

_This was the Hall of Odin?_

_**Yes, the pompous ass.**_

Galian slowed to a trot as they entered the building, which, like all the others, lacked any semblance or doors or window panes. His nails clicked loudly on the hard, slick floor, and he swung his head to and fro, sniffing. He felt Seri sit up as Chaos's wings loosed his passengers, and a smaller weight moved around in as Elias was set upright in front of her.

"Kitty," Elias said again, and Vincent could feel him petting the back of his neck.

The two humans rode this way as they crossed the great hall, the beast body quickly recovering from his run and to Vincent's dismay, recovering his former condition as well. Time to get out of this state. He stood slowly, sliding the riders down his back until they straddled the thick, muscular tail and both scrambled to their feet. He had his back to them, but in that frozen moment of the transforming Seri came around his side, her eyes widening somewhat at the sight, and probably the size, of Galian's exposed and currently engorged anatomy. Chaos, the bastard, was no help, refusing to re-shroud him.

"Oooh," Seri said, before averting her eyes.

As soon as Vincent was able, he spun away with a groan. Of all the cursed humiliations. Not only were his demons laughing heartily at him, but he was stuck with the full load of Galian's arousal. At least he was clothed now, and under any normal, human, state he would have been able to calm himself down. But his human systems were overloaded with the demon's more potent energy. Fire filled his face, and he began to sweat, and if he didn't release he was quite likely to pass out in the next few seconds.

"Excuse me," he managed to mumble, and walked quickly into a side room that he hoped to hell wasn't full of booby traps or something. He unfastened his fly and with a single touch relieved his distress as strangled cry escaped his throat. It wasn't the first time this had happened to him, and had always supposed it was only a matter of time before he failed to hide it. As his body calmed, Vincent hung his head and wondered again why he persisted with this existence.

Once more presentable, Vincent walked back into the main entry where Seri waited, one hand holding the boy's as he tottered about her feet, yanking on her arm. Vincent opened his mouth to speak and found he couldn't, physically just couldn't manage. He put his back to her to compose himself.

"Hey," Seri's husky voice came from behind his head, "Next time, you know, I'd be happy to help with that."

Vincent turned his head to see Seri standing with her weight on one leg and looking at him teasingly. Quite suddenly Vincent's self-mortifying embarrassment washed away in the face of her attitude and raunchy comment. This was not a girl he had to be polite in front of. Making him an offer like that put her, in his mind at least, in a similar casual-intimate category as strippers and bawdy barmaids. The kind of girl a guy could relax around when it came to bodily functions.

"I'll keep it in mind," he said. "Let's look around."

They moved between the rooms, although Vincent was sure nobody was here, at least nobody that made the sound of breath or had any scent to them. The place was empty, and pristine. There was no way to look for tracks, because apparently there was no dust in the city of the gods. The palace was enormous, and it was almost ten minutes before they came to anything of interest. It was a large room filled with what were maybe machines for this world. To Vincent they looked like the architecture, like they had been made out of blown glass. The objects had structures inside them that moved, pieces that interacted but never touched, via some non-mechanical force that Vincent suspected was not as simple as magnetism. All the separate "machines" were set in a semi-circle and trading some sort of colored light communication with a cylindrical object in their center. Above the cylinder floated a small, twisted item of glossy black with a few swirling tendrils of gold inside it. There was a green thread of fire connecting the black and gold swirler to a rectangular door, similar to the one they came through, inky black save the incongruous green thread that disappeared into its center.

_**They've started it. I never actually believed it would function.**_

"This is the device Fuhito spoke of? The thing that will unwrap time?" Vincent said aloud, so Seri could hear.

_**I believe so. We never saw it run before Odu-in was... **_

"Incarcerated?"

_**Yes. He was- Don't touch that!**_

Vincent's hand shot out and grabbed Seri by the shoulder.

"Ow!" She protested. "I wasn't going to touch. Just look."

Vincent and Chaos sighed at the same time.

_**The machine must not be disturbed in any way during its startup phase, otherwise it might feedback energy in an explosive way, proportional to its design objective. For a machine targeted to change time over the whole planet...**_

"Its feedback might explode the whole planet." Vincent said.

_**Yup.**_

"Did you say it was still warming up?" Seri asked.

_**The askel will be completely gold when charged.**_

"How long?" Vincent asked.

**«τώo dαyς, ςix hoμrς, forty-two miημτες»**

Vincent frowned, wondering how Death Gigas knew that. He looked at Seri and pointed to his ear, questioning if she could hear this demon too. She nodded.

"How do you know that that, Gigas?" Vincent asked.

**«Oßjεcτ ςtαrτ oηε ρoiητ τhrεε ρεrcεητ gold ßy volμmε. ƒivε αηd onε hαlf miημτες ηoώ oßjεcτ iς oηε ρoiητ ςεvεη ρεrcεητ gold ßy volμmε. εςτimατε ßαςε oη τhατ hας coηςταητ rατε of iηcrεαςε»**

Vincent puzzled momentarily. The counting, the ability to remember huge lists, he was familiar with these traits of the demon. But he had no idea it was some sort of mathematical genius. Or arithmetic genius, at least. And could gauge volume with accuracy.

"How do we shut it off without blowing up the planet?" Vincent asked.

_**The Lifestream thread powering it must be shut off at the source. This machine probably needs the richest tap from the planet.**_

"Midgar," Vincent said. There was a reason ShinRa had put its first and biggest reactor there. There was an enormous, natural mako spring there.

_**Yes. Odin probably set that door to Midgar before he and his helpers went through, and then opened the tap from there. We can't go through now, not with the stream coming through. **_

**«τώo dαyς, ςix hoμrς, forty-oηε miημτες»**

"We have to get to Midgar," Vincent said.

"Back through the temple?" Seri sounded disturbed. "We didn't find Erik, or Mrs. Snortland. She must still be with Fuhito. How are we going to get back through the maze?

**«mε cαη do iτ »**

Vincent nodded, that was right up Gigas' alley.

"Still," Seri said, "It might take two days to get from Bifröst to Midgar."

"Not by airship," Vincent said. "I know someone I can call; we can make it in a few hours. And oh," Vincent scrunched up his face, remembering the isolation he had been appreciating in Bifröst. "After a half day chocobo ride to the nearest phone, in Dreisel, that is."

"Or less, on high speed motorcycles," Seri reminded him of the bikes collected from the original attackers.

"Right. But first back to the door to the temple. Hopefully it's still there." Vincent strode back out to the entrance of the hall with Seri trotting behind, shifting Elias to a less fatigued arm. "I can carry you as before."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Are you going to have that... problem again?"

Vincent groaned and squeezed his forehead with his hand.

"Maybe. Probably. And it's not my problem, it's Galian's, Galian Beast. He's a Class One demon, limited but very strong. He's very... excitable."

All of Vincent's demons laughed.

_**But you're the one who jizzed in Odin's Hall, Vincent. Which, by the way, I'll love you forever for.**_

_Oh just shut up! And you can love the Galian Beast if it pleases you; it's his deal._

_**Sure, Valentine.**_

Seri laughed, too, holding a hand to her mouth that failed to hold back a gaping guffaw.

"Beast is right!" she burst out, thinking the demon was well named in more ways than one. "Maybe I should 'help' him instead!" She laughed again, a gut busting ruckus that doubled her over so that she had to set the boy down.

"It's not funny," Vincent protested.

"Oh, admit it, it is a little bit funny. And sexy." She laughed again, and when she looked up she was different. Just a tiny bit, her eyes had drained of some color, and the warm, brown tones of her skin had a hint of cool iridescence. Suddenly Vincent knew what he should have known at first blush. He of all people should have picked up on it, because apparently his hoard had known all along. Some piece of himself, not his Turk-self certainly, had trusted too easily. He grabbed Seri and shoved her back into a wall, both his human hand and his claw digging into her shoulders.

"What type is it?" he demanded. "What level?!"

She shook her head, confused, eyes wide, jerked suddenly from mirth to terror. He moved his clawed hand to her throat and slowly increased the pressure. She'd reveal herself before long; even he couldn't control the changing if too close to death. The boy Elias started wailing from where his little bottom sat on the floor next to them, and the other inhabitants inside Vincent's head began an agitated clamoring. He ignored all of it and continued to squeeze, the edges of his clawed appendage tearing her skin and slicking the surface with blood. Finally, what he had been waiting for happened. The creature in his grasp shifted in appearance, her skin paled to the blue white of glacier ice and her eyes dropped their color and shone like mirrors. Now he remembered those eyes, catching briefly the candlelight in the witch Betty's hut, but he had been too rattled at the time to attach much significance from it. The small irregularities in her teeth morphed and straightened until they were blazing white and incredibly sharp looking, the canines elongated and sharpened, a typical demon trait.

And then quite suddenly he released her, only he hadn't. Vincent's brain hadn't sent the command to open his fingers, or to take a step back, and here he was doing both. He barely caught the feeling of that peculiar aligning of his own demons inside, not relaxed this time, but aggressive and agitated and _cooperating_, before it dissolved.

"Shit," Vincent hissed. He launched a vicious locking down of control from every emotion to every thought to every physical cell in his body. But he was receiving no particular resistance now. His demons had gone back into their normal, disorganized states. Only Chaos remained focused and attentive. Seri, meanwhile had sunk to the floor, looking like her normal self again but gasping and holding her throat.

Vincent, once again finding himself the boss of himself, squatted down on his haunches to look at Seri. She was still fighting for air and bleeding from the neck. Her demon form, such as it was, hadn't even healed her. He hadn't sensed any extra strength or magical prowess in the thing. It was hardly more than a color change and some teeth.

Vincent accessed his green materia and spoke the phrase. "Cure1."

The spell healed the skin on Seri's neck and whatever he had bruised in her throat. She took a long, unfettered breath.

"Is that it?" he asked. "That's not even a Class One demon."

"Demon? It's just a birth defect!" she yelled, still catching up on air. "It happens sometimes among my people. Girls, I mean. Only girls." Seri crawled over to Elias and pulled him into her lap, trying to shush his crying.

"Shh, it's OK," she said softly. "The big, mean, man isn't going to hurt us."

Vincent shut his eyes and rolled his lips inward where he bit down with some force. In the strange absence of Chaos' normal recriminations he supposed he should just say it himself. V_alentine, you're an asshole._

Vincent scooted over to her and, with great internal effort, gently reached forward to awkwardly pat her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Seri gave him a sulking look, one that made him unsure if he was forgiven or not.

"But I need to understand this, before we can move on. You are _not_ hosting a demon entity?"

"There's no demon!" she said, now exasperated with him. "Just because you're infested with demons doesn't mean everyone is. It's just me, it's just how I am. If I get to upset or... excited, I turn a little blue. Every Mariteen girl who has this has the same thing, if it were demons we'd all be different. But it's just blue. Sometimes one is born who is more deformed. It's rare, and they... normally the witch smothers the baby before its first cry. So its soul is not harmed."

_**They what?!**_

It was the first thing Chaos had spoken since Vincent had attacked Seri, and Vincent could feel he was upset. But Vincent couldn't blame the Mariteen people; whatever Seri seemed to think this was, it certainly was some sort of demon phenomenon. They couldn't afford to have a full fledged demon growing up among them. Demons had a tendency to kill and sometimes eat humans.

"It's rare," Seri continued. "I only heard of it once while I was growing up. It's supposedly a kindness. Such infants never live past a few days, at least that's what I've been told. They would scream in pain for a few days and die."

_**It's not pain. It's grief. **_

Seri looked startled. "I've heard that. Sometimes we say that the Sawteye, the bluing birth defect, is an expression of grief."

"We have to move," Vincent said, "We can talk as we travel." He pulled up Galian without warning, and this time Elias screamed.

"Hey," Seri said, bumping the boy up and down. "It's the kitty, remember?"

"Kitty," Elias said, less enthusiastically this time.

cccccc

For the second time that day they were loping through the City of the Gods, the large horned beast and its riders. Chaos spoke as Galian ran. In fact, the amount of speaking Chaos had been doing surprised Vincent, one of many surprises for this trip. Vincent could force Chaos to comply to a transformation and control that transformed body physically (or mostly, at least under normal circumstances, not including mad scientists with weird boxes). But he rarely could he force Chaos to divulge things he knew. In general it was deadly difficult force Chaos to speak. Or to shut up for that matter. And at the moment the demon seemed genuinely delighted to have someone to talk to besides Vincent.

_**Everything came down to Baldr. Everything that is now, and was then, the entire downfall. Odu-in's son, the one that undid us all. It was his vanity... and arrogance. Convinced of his invincibility, he boasted and tempted all the Vanir to prove him wrong, until finally one did. A weak and blind Vanir, no less, armed with the most innocuous of things.**_

_**Odu-in wasn't the only one fatally grief-stricken by Baldr's passing. He had a consort, Fryja. She was blue as the winter sky and so reflective she seemed to emit light of her own. And she was quite a warrior as well. But her real strength was in her nature; she could soothe any ragged nerve or ill temper, I think because she loved so deeply. Each of my kind has an essence, an immutable nature. Mine is destruction and disorder. Hers was... love.**_

"Did you love her?" Seri asked.

Chaos seemed to consider, as if the question confused him.

_**She was Baldr's. Although she should have been one of mine. I'd have treated her better.**_

_One of yours? You had a... haram?_

Chaos gave one of those purring growls, and Vincent wondered how the two of them were compatible enough to share the same body without blowing apart. Vincent was about the most un-haram type guy he could think of. He couldn't even get over the one love he had had. And lost.

"You loved her," Seri said simply.

_**Hrmph. Perhaps. But I held no ill will towards Baldr because of it. None could. You cannot imagine what it was like to see him, to be in his presence, how gloriously beautiful he was. How every time you saw him, it was like you had been starving and hadn't known until his smile sated you, had been living in black and white until he shone color onto your eyes.**_

Vincent, privy to more than just Chaos' words, saw Baldr in his mind, and his internal self gasped. A visual alone could never have done him justice; it was the feeling that Chaos was feeding him that worked the magic. He felt he might explode with awe, excitement, and...greed. He wondered if that last part was the fault his human self, failing to absorb and interpret properly these alien emotions.

_**When Baldr fell, Fryja flew from Asgard and descended to the physical world, to Gaia, your world. I tried to catch her... but she was fast and had too great a lead by the time I understood what she meant to do. She fell so hard in her grief and despair that when she plunged into the sea her body struck the bottom of the ocean and released a plume of soil that welled up and formed an island. **_

"OH!" Seri cried. "That's just an old legend! That the island of Meritee was formed by the falling of a god from the sky! But you don't expect me to believe that is literal?"

Chaos gave a mental shrug that indicated he didn't much care whether he was believed or not.

_**Her essence, her nature, her talents, and her songs, they passed to the habitants that sprung up from that soil**_

"It passed into the human population?"

_**Cetra, human, whatever. **_

"But... the Cetra and human are different species," Seri said, confused. Chaos shrugged again and would say no more about it. They had reached the main hall and stopped in front of the color changing door. Vincent stood as he transformed back into his human self, dumping Seri onto her butt where she rolled to keep the child from hitting the floor. The boy laughed, delighted, and Vincent had to admit he was at least an agreeable child.

Chaos wrapped his wings around Vincent voluntarily this time, before going limp as the last of his demon forms left him. Although neither of them was distracted in the same embarrassing way as last time. Vincent smiled a little. Gigas still felt pretty good, and Vincent did as well. Chaos was reflective, and the other two were... asleep. Vincent helped Seri up, and even chanced to scoop up the boy himself. Elias settled easily into the crook of his arm, letting his white-blond curls fall against Vincent's neck.

_**I liked holding the female and the child. Why don't you procreate Valentine? What about this one? She is of the correct age for peak fertility.**_

_She's not my type _Vincent shot back without thinking, and partly in shock because he suddenly knew one of those extra things that sometimes came when Chaos spoke. Any child he sired while hosting this particular powerful demon would inherit demon traits. Yet another reason never to have sex.

_**What about the strong female in your group, the one with the large mammory glands?**_

_Not happening, demon._

_**The young one? She will be old enough soon.**_

_Quit!_

Vincent spoke out loud to drown out the pestering in his head.

"Here we go," he said, holding Elias in one arm and Seri in the other to ensure they went through together, "on the blue..."


	11. The Way Out

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. I just have him on loan

**A/N: Sorry for the Haitus. Life, stuff, you know.**

They tumbled back into the temple, and Seri blinked repeatedly at the sudden loss of light as her eyes slowly adjusted. The change was startling, from the cool, bright, city of the gods to this warm and humid, cave-like darkness. As Seri's eyes adjusted she also became aware of what she had forgotten in this room. It was empty, cleaned by the Lifestream of the bodies, their clothes, and even the excrement that abandons the body the same moment life does. But the smell still hung in the air, an unpleasant reminder. They moved outside the door, where Vincent sat down. Seri looked at him, puzzled.

"Gigas is asleep," Vincent explained.

Seri concentrated, listening the way she had in the Asgard. She could feel the one called Gigas, the simple-minded savant of a counter. He was quiet, his rhythms slowed.

"Should we... try to wake him?"

"It's better if he sleeps. He doesn't function properly if woken from sleep. And I think I want him to be accurate here. He's just napping; it shouldn't be more than ten minutes."

Seri nodded and slid down the wall beside him.

"I wanna go. Let's go!" Elias implored.

"Just a few minutes sweetie," Seri said. It was late for the little one to be up; maybe he would go to sleep, too.

"I want Mommy! Where's daddy?!"

"Shhh, we'll keep looking for them, in a minute. But we have to rest first."

Seri looked wearily at Vincent. They were pretty far from finding "mommy", and had no idea what happened to "daddy". They would have to find some townsperson to take the boy before they left. That was going to be an unpleasant conversation. Maybe she'd let Vincent handle it. They sat several minutes in silence, Seri tapping her foot, Elias fidgeting. Vincent might have been dead for all he moved.

"So..." Seri said, hoping for a time waster. "No kids yourself, huh?"

Vincent shook his head once.

"Wife? Family? Parents?"

Vincent shook his head again.

"Sister? Some cousins, maybe?"

"There's no one."

"Not even a girl? Or guy, whatever?"

"No," Vincent answered, annoyed and wanting to get the focus off his personal life. "And you? I suppose you have a brisk social life at U of Mied?"

Seri laughed, then snorted, not bothering this time to try and cover it. "College life isn't as lively as everyone seems to like to think. But I date some. I'm seeing a guy now. He's... nice."

Vincent turned his head at the telling pause. "Nice?"

"Yes, nice. Nice is nice. He's considerate, and funny... very sweet."

"He's empty-headed," Vincent concluded.

"Is not!"

"Is he blonde?" Vincent asked, feeling a bit wicked.

Seri pursed her lips and he knew his whimsical guess had actually been right.

"At least he sticks around. It's not easy, you know, most men run for it the first time I wake up screaming from some war nightmare, or turn blue in bed."

"I imagine it's the teeth."

"What teeth?"

"Your sharp, pointy, demon teeth."

Seri stared at Vincent in the dim light, unsure what he was playing at with this. She didn't have pointy teeth. She ran her tongue over them just to be sure, just to check that maybe somebody might find them... pointyish. But they weren't. They weren't very straight, but they weren't pointy, either.

_**They sharpen during your change now that you have been to Asgard, Fryja's home. She is strengthened in you now.**_

Seri's face opened in alarm and Vincent realized the pointy teeth business was new for her.

"I'm sorry," he said, genuinely sympathetic, knowing what it was like to suddenly be altered without your permission. "Mine are kind of pointy all the time, another leftover from Chaos." As a peace offering he lifted a lip and showed one canine that was, in fact, quite pointy.

_**It's better.**_

Seri closed her lips over her teeth, grateful hers weren't pointy full time but wondering in what way this new development could be 'better'.

"I don't suppose pointy teeth are exactly helpful to one's love life," she commented.

"I have no love life to worry about," Vincent said before he could remember to shut himself up. And now it was too late- if he didn't qualify his statement, and with some sense of finality, more questions would be asked.

"I never recovered from my first love, and now she is dead."

"I'm sorry," Seri said. "I lost my first love too, to the war. A beautiful boy, not suited to the ugly work of the rebellion. I guess we never get over them."

She had the sense not to look directly at Vincent during this exchange, but he felt her similar pain. Enough to speak a little more than he normally would have.

"Problem is I'm not sure she's gone. There are... strange circumstances."

"Oh," Seri said, thinking there was no level of strange she would not believe concerning Vincent. Even dead people who were somehow not "gone". But the second statement seemed to pain Vincent even more than the first.

"You have no closure," she said.

"No."

They sat another minute in silence. Seri looked into the gloom of the passageway they would be travelling. Faintly glowing tubes travelled from them.

"I guess the lights have come back on since we left," Seri said. "But they seem dimmer."

_**The imbalance of green has been corrected. But... the pool is a little low.**_

_Uhn huh. Hope you enjoyed your little bath._ Vincent was about to ask what he meant by "imbalance" when he felt Death Gigas stir and give a little grumble.

"Good morning, Gigas," Seri said softly.

**« τεη-ƒorτy-τώo ρm »**

Seri looked at Vincent, confused. Surely it was after two in the morning by now. Vincent shook his head; Gigas had never been off about time before.

"Maybe the trip to Asgard shifted his clock somehow. Let's hope his sense of direction is still good. Can you get us back to the entrance, Gigas?"

**«yεαh, cαη do iτ! »**

"It's better if I change again, if he tries to tell me the turns he'll just run it all together into a confused jumble. But his appearance is... disturbing."

Seri shrugged and Vincent stepped back into the bridge room, and moments later an enormous, blocky man stepped out. His misshapen head nearly brushed the top of the tunnel wall, his oddly out-of-proportion limbs heavy and ponderous. With the demon's vision that always consisted of muted shades of gray Vincent saw Seri lean away from him, and heavy brows knit as his face contracted on its own. That was the thing he had the poorest control over while in the demon form, the demon's emotional expressions on his face. He tried to speak with a tongue thick and clumsy.

"Down't," was all he could get out. He was suddenly acutely aware that Gigas was hurt, his feelings were hurt. Vincent had never used this form before except to fight, when there wasn't time for anything but aggression. It never occurred to him that the demon might be… sensitive.

Seri bravely came close and of all things grasped one of the big, meaty hands. She even smiled at Gigas, as if he were an overgrown child. The coarse features on the lumpy faced smiled back, or tried to. It felt more like a cross between a snarl and a yawn to Vincent. The actual child in this scenario, Elias, apparently had enough frights for one day and had sunk his face firmly into Seri's neck. Her hand was warm and smooth and tiny in the demon's oversized grip.

"Let's go, OK?" Seri asked sweetly, and the big demon slowly stepped forward.

"OK, we go," he said, Vincent cringing inside at his inability to speak better than a moron.

They walked along this way, Seri encouraging with her confident grip, as though she were the one leading rather than following the turns directed by the demon. Gigas made the turns, contentedly plodding along without a moment's hesitation or thought.

"You're good at this," Seri said, hoping it wouldn't break his concentration.

"Yeah, vere good. Vere good." The words were harsh and half formed, and Vincent cringed again. That wasn't exactly what he had directed the demon mouth to say. Things always came out that way when he tried to use Gigas to speak; language was tricky for him. But he could feel the demon was happy, and they were making good time. Another half an hour and they arrived back to the entrance chamber with the large green tube. Vincent eased back into himself, releasing Seri's hand with a trace of reluctance. It had been a lifetime since his hand had been held as if he were someone's beloved child. Even in his real childhood that part of it had been cut short. He moved to the door and easily located the mechanism that would open it from the inside, and then paused before pulling the massive lever, that same reluctance staying his hand. Reluctance to leave the temple, despite its darkness and death and the press of things that needed to be done. He in fact felt remarkably relaxed. He smiled ever so slightly, and Seri noticed.

"Feeling good?" she asked.

"Actually I am. Very." Vincent shook his head slightly, confused by himself.

"You feel good because your demons feel good."

He looked at her, skeptical.

"You know it too, or you would if you'd quit trying to deny them. Galian got to run, Gigas got to be useful by counting and calculating, and Chaos got to... rampage. And I don't know, talk?"

_**To a woman. I like women.**_

Seri laughed. "OK, he got to talk to a woman. Maybe you should indulge them more. What about the fourth one? I don't hear much from him."

**.YOU ШILL, MY DEДЯ. **

The sinister tone of the silent message, the clear, implied threat, caused the hair to stand up on the back of Seri's neck. Vincent felt Chaos reach out and smack Hellmasker with whatever constituted force in the other world inside himself. Then a ruckus ensued between all his demons, and he was pretty sure some biting was involved. Vincent winced. So much for relaxed.

"You don't want him indulged. As far as I know, inducing suffering is the only joy he knows. He's a class two, very dangerous, sly and manipulative. Don't play with him."

"OK, noted. Shall we go?"

"Yes, we shall. All seven of us." Vincent pulled the lever and the door swung gently towards them. As soon as the outside air touched him he knew something was wrong. That wasn't the smell of ocean and ranches of the eastern coast.

"Where are we?" Seri asked as they stepped out into the night.

"Midgar, I think," Vincent said.

They stepped out onto the moonlit landing near the door, the 532 steps of cardiac climb gone, only the first few steps by their feet tapering off into nothingness. Beyond that was empty space. They weren't so much in Midgar as above it, floating hundreds of meters above the ruins.

"Did we take a wrong turn?" Seri asked, knowing as she said it that it was ridiculous; you didn't take a wrong turn and accidentally walk across the continent to Midgar.

_Care to explain this?_ Vincent asked. Chaos seemed to know a hell of a lot about the temple, door, and the world beyond. But all he gave him now was his more usual, stubborn grunting.

Then Seri stepped in front of him, gave him another of those "looking past him" looks that he hated, and her lips moved slightly as her brows knit in tense concentration. In a few moments Chaos spoke.

_**I don't remember all the workings of the bridges. It was never of much interest to me. But every bridge can open on any number of key locations. Midgard is a key location. It depends on the cycle count when the green phase is broached.**_

Vincent realized with a start and extreme irritation that Seri had spoken to Chaos, silently, and he hadn't heard it. Next for all he knew Chaos would learn to speak back without Vincent hearing. But on second thought he decided that might be better. Then they could prattle on all they wanted and wouldn't disturb him one whit. At least Chaos was cooperating for her. Vincent opted to address the issue as professionally as possible.

"I can't hear you when you speak to him silently. Please don't do that; you leave me out of half the conversation," he said coolly.

"Oh! Sorry!" Seri managed to look mortified and pleased at the same time. "I just wanted to know if it would work. But I guess it's pretty rude."

"It is," Vincent said, not mentioning that he meant to reserve the right to do exactly the same to her, discuss with Chaos silently whenever he felt the need. He was the one who hosted the bugger, after all, and most of what passed between them were just insults anyway.

"The broaching of green, you meant when Erik passed through the door when it was green?" Seri asked, aloud.

_**Yes. He returned after the correct number of cycles to set the bridge to Midgar, and restored the bridge's balance. **_

"Oh, so he's back?" Seri said. She had been expecting, with sadness and some guilt, that the shoemaker was dead.

Chaos gave a mental nudge and Vincent looked over to the left, and at the edge of the landing, leaning against a stony protrusion that mostly hid him, sat Erik Snortland. Seri followed his gaze and yelled.

"Erik!"

The pale head turned and Elias squirmed in her arms so that she nearly dropped him as he yelled for his daddy. Erik stood up slowly, like a man in a dream, and walked slowly over to them. Without thinking he held out his arms and gathered Elias to himself.

"Miss Kusa? And, Mr. Valentine, right?" The cobbler looked from one to the other, waiting for one of them to say something, but they stared at him as though they were as confused as he. Not knowing what else to do he stuck out his right hand to Vincent.

"Erik Snortland," he said, standing rather oddly as Vincent refused to take his hand.

"We've met. You don't remember?"

Erik's hand fell limply to his side, confused at both Vincent's question and demeanor.

_**Heh ehehehhee! Humans endure the green pull so poooorly!**_

"I... remember... breakfast. Where are we?"

Vincent rolled his eyes back into his head. This was just fantastic, now he had with him a child, a reckless young woman, and an amnesiac shoemaker. They were floating above miles and miles of the very hostile and dangerous ruins of Midgar. He needed some help.

"I don't suppose you have a phone?" he asked Seri.


	12. A Little Help

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy. Or Vincent. But at least I don't give him headaches (wait, I do, I'm writing this). (Sorry Vince.)

"I don't suppose you have a phone?" he asked Seri.

Seri blinked twice, mentally perusing through her small hip bag. "Actually, I do have my phone..." She fished out the small device that had been forgotten down at the bottom.

"I'm sure it's dead," she said, "There's no place to charge it in Bifröst."

Vincent took the phone and peered at its bottom end. Standard two-prong connector. He dug into his own pocket and pulled out the small box that had replaced his standard Turk techkit. It wasn't complete yet, but it held several small tools, one bug and receiver, miscellaneous electronic components, and one grape sized explosive, appropriate for distractions only. The small box flipped open in his clawed hand like an oversized cigarette case and Vincent pinched with the tips of his fingers one small curved wire with a slightly thickened middle. He snapped the kit shut and it disappeared into his pocket with a quick flick of his hand. He then fitted the small wire into the bottom of Seri's phone and moved the phone around, changing location and angle, as he squinted at the bulk of the temple behind him. The thing was massive and floating above Midgar. He was pretty sure it hadn't been here before, or if so it had been hidden in some physical way. They had to be swimming in a massive mako field. It wasn't hard to pull a low power voltage off a field, but most people had no idea how to do it, or didn't spend enough time around reactors or natural field sources to care. The phone beeped when it was nearly horizontal, indicating it was accepting a charge.

"Whoa," Seri said, smiling in clear admiration. "I guess you don't ever need to plug your phone in."

"I don't own one," Vincent said.

"You're kidding."

Vincent's deadpan face indicated he was not.

"As techy a guy as you are? No phone?" she asked.

"Phones are social devices."

"I see."

Vincent queried Death Gigas for a phone number and dialed, having to lean his head over at a severe angle to keep the device at the proper angle for his little mako field antennae. A gruff and irritated voice came over the other end.

"Yeah, who are you and what the hell do you want?"

Vincent had to pull his ear away from the phone a bit, not just from the coarse greeting but from the din of some kind of machinery in the background. Vincent waited a moment before speaking, suddenly not sure of what to say.

"Cid."

".... Vince? What the fuck, is that really you?"

"Yes, Cid, it is I." Vincent sighed. Something about Cid's abuse of the English language always made Vincent want to overcompensate with ridiculous correctness.

"Well I'll be a goddam sonofawhore. Where the hell have you been, Vince? You disappear for a whole fuckin' year, Tifa's been worrying her ass off and nobody can-

"Cid, I need some help."

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line. Vincent closed his eyes. On the one hand he was glad he was able to shock Cid into shutting up, but on the other he hated asking for help. His eyes scanned across the dark sea of dead Midgar. He wasn't asking for himself. And time was short.

**«τώo dαyς, τhεε hoμrς, ƒiƒτy-oηε miημτες»**

"What do you need, Vince?"

Cid and Gigas had spoken at the same time, and Vincent easily divided his brain to handle both. He could actually communicate with up to two of his demons and talk to an outside person all at the same time.

"I don't suppose you have a ship at your disposal?" Vincent asked.

"Well..." The machine sounds in Cid's background wound down into silence. "I got one piece of shit runnin', if you aint too far."

"I am currently floating about.."

**«ƒoμr hμηdrεd αηd τώo ƒεεt. ςix iηchες» **

"...four hundred feet above the surface of Midgar. Dead center, I believe, right above the old axle."

"... You just, what, hangin' out in the air?"

"I'm standing on the doorstep of an enormous, pyramid shaped structure that may not be visible. Try not to fly into it."

"Well, damn, Vince. I'll be there in about an hour, I'll just... fuckin' fly around lookin' for you, I guess."

"Thank-you, Cid." Vincent snapped the phone shut, then set it down on the ground with a pebble under one end to keep it at the charging angle.

"Now we wait," he said, sat down with one long leg stretched out, and proceeded to wait.

cccccc

Vincent stood when he heard a small airship, and within a few moments was able to pick out its marker lights. It sounded terrible; one of the rotors had a bad bearing and something was amiss with the cadence of the engine. Cid wasn't kidding when he said it was a piece of shit. Bright lights, the landing lights Vincent realized, suddenly blazed from the nose of the ship and then started a slow raster to and fro. Landing lights were normally not steerable; Cid was probably swinging the body of the ship to and fro in order to make the lamps sweep out a search pattern. And doing a nice job of it. Vincent saw the beam hit the side of the temple, but nothing reflected back. Then the ship flew right into the thing, and all three of them caught their breath before realizing the ship had passed right into the space without harm. In fact they could see the pyramid shape _and_ the ship at the same time.

"It's not occupying the same physical space," Vincent said. "It's shifted from our reality somehow."

"What about us? Are we... in this reality? Will your friend see us? Or fly though us?"

Vincent frowned and shook his head to indicate he didn't know. He stepped out to the very brink of where the landing they stood on started to fade. He took one more step and a bit of it gave way like softened snow, causing him to catch himself.

"Careful!" Erik shouted in alarm and made to approach Vincent. Seri put a hand to his arm to stop him.

"I don't think we have to worry about this one falling," she said. For the last hour she had tried to jog Erik's memory regarding the last day and night, and some things seemed to be coming back to him. But he didn't seem to have any memory of Vincent being able to turn into a demon with wings and Seri didn't bring it up.

Vincent remained out on this precarious ledge while the ship flew through the temple, then back again, criss-crossing in a search pattern. Then, as a bit of the bright light caught the temple door, the ship abruptly backpedaled, moving out and more to the front of them and flooding all four in harsh white light that made them squint. Then it turned and slowly sidled up sideways until it was quite close, the motion jerking slightly with the periodic imbalance of the engine. Cid was probably working hard to keep the ship in any semblance of steady, and Vincent had to admit, not for the first time (to himself), that the man really was a stellar pilot.

A door on the side of the ship slid half way open, stuck fast with a grinding noise, closed, then opened halfway again and they could hear Cid's stentorian cussing over the din of engine and propellers. Vincent leapt lightly onto a tiny ledge near the stuck door and clung there like a spider to the outside of the ship. With a grunt and a forceful shove he sent the door all the way open where it stopped with a clunk, no longer quite straight in its tracks. Then with clawed hand hooked fast on the inside frame he reached out and helped his companions aboard, Erik looking too stunned to fully comprehend that his first flight ever in an airship was starting by jumping onto it as the thing hovered in the air above a city he'd never been to.

"Fuck, Vince!" a rough voice hollered from the front of the ship "Ya didn't tell me you had passengers with you! We'll be gaiadamn lucky to keep this thing in the air long enough to get back to the hangar!"

"I have complete confidence in your abilities," Vincent said dryly as the four passengers moved into the cockpit area to stand behind Cid, who looked as though he had his hands full keeping the beast aloft, rapidly flicking switches and adjusting levers while one muscular arm fought with some sort of attitude control that seemed to be fighting back.

"Yeah, right, you motherfu- Hellooo!" Cid had caught sight of Seri, in particular her broad features and brown skin. "Meriteen baaaaby!"

Seri's face contracted all at once in an angry look Vincent hadn't seen on her before. He had forgotten about that old stereotype, that Mariteen island women were supposed be exotic in some sexual way, partly because of a cultural dance that probably was no longer practiced. Leave it to Cid to dredge up some old, inappropriate idea like that.

"He doesn't mean anything by it," Vincent said. "He's just crude by nature."

Seri scowled, and looked like she would have hit Cid in the back of his sandy blond head were he not in charge of keeping them aloft and alive.

"Fine," she said, "but if he makes any cracks about grass skirts I am going to shoot him when we land."

"Yeah, fuck, whatever," Cid said, barely paying them any attention as the ship took a rather ominous feeling dip.

"So you can't see your shivaloving pyramid until you're right in front of the door, and then only just," Cid said. "I think I fucking flew through it."

"It certainly looked like you did," Vincent said. "It's some kind of doorway. The thing just transported us from almost 2000 miles to the east. What time is it here, anyway?"

"'Bout one in the morning."

**«τώεlv****ε ƒifτy-ƒiv****ε αm»**

Vincent nodded, now understanding why Giga's time had seemed 'off' earlier. He wasn't off; he somehow knew they had skipped four time zones. "I'm afraid we aren't the only ones who arrived tonight. There's some... trouble."

Cid snorted. "Shit, wouldn't expect anything less from you, Vince. Anything to do with that, do you suppose?"

Cid had circled the ship around, and now they could see the ground under the temple, straight down the ruined "shaft" that had been at the center of the reactor and the center of Midgar. A bright green glow flooded the opening, almost 50 feet in diameter.

"Is that the... Lifestream tap? Powering Odin's machine?" Seri asked.

"I think so," Vincent said. "It's the right location. We need to get down there, but not tonight. I am too fatigued to be sure I'm making good decisions, and this is no place for the living to be at night." Vincent pointed out the numerous small greenish lights all throughout the ruined city. "The place is crawling with mako monsters, mutants, and cannibals that have sprung up after the collapse."

Seri and Erik shuddered.

"Not to mention Odin may be lurking nearby, protecting his power feed. I want to go in the morning. I think we have time."

**«τώo dαyς, τώo hoμrς, τώεητy-ςix miημτες»**

"Well, we're definitely not launching some assault in this cocksucking hunk of junk," Cid said, and turned the ship towards home.

ccccccccc

Home was a set of metal hangar buildings in an ugly, industrial area north of Edge. Cid set the ship down with two hard thumps and then maneuvered it slowly on its tiny wheels towards one of the buildings. They passed several hulking wrecks of not only airships but other vehicles, and two large, dangerous looking dogs ran along side them, yelping with eager happiness.

"I run a salvage and ship yard now," Cid explained. "I do pretty well, what with a whole city full of busted up junk and a whole 'nuther city looking to rebuild."

"You have to go into old Midgar to collect supplies," Vincent commented.

Cid grinned, a lopsided, and somehow childlike, toothy affair. "Fuck yeah. That's half the fun. The other half is putting the shit together."

Vincent grunted. He preferred equipment to work rather than have to futz around with it all day, but that kind of thing was just what Cid loved. As to sneaking into the ruins of the city, salvaging items, fighting off monsters and mutants- Vincent could identify with enjoying that. But still...

"You shouldn't be going into Midgar alone," he said as they disembarked. "Too many hostiles, one will eventually sneak up on you."

"Well I aint exactly alone."

Vincent was about to ask what he meant by that when a small and rather familiar figure came flying out at them. Or rather at him.

"Vinnie!"

Vincent sidestepped, half out of instinct and half out of mindful avoidance. He moved so quickly that the petite ninja-girl completely missed him and collided with Seri instead, sending them both to the dirty concrete floor.

"Oh, sorry," Yuffie said casually, as if she hadn't just flattened a complete stranger. Yuffie popped up quickly, leaving a dazed Seri to accept a free hand from Erik.

"I thought maybe Cid was just giving me shit-" she stopped abruptly and clapped a hand over her mouth "Oops! Gawd, Cid, you're rubbing off on me! But at least you're not a total big, fat liar. Vincent! You're actually here! That's good, because I already called Tifa and told her you were coming! Who are _they_?" Yuffie pointed abruptly at Seri, Erik, and a very sleepy Elias.

Vincent made introductions of the barest sort but they satisfied Yuffie as she seemed wholly uninterested in actual detailed information. A small pain was starting to throb in Vincent's forehead. Yuffie always gave him this pain. He suspected it was the wild pitch changes of her voice that characterized her speaking pattern. But it was milder now than he remembered, and Vincent noticed she was both taller and heavier than a year ago. Maybe her voice was calming down as she matured. Her figure was filling out as well, and Vincent gave Cid a suspicious look.

"Why is she here?"

Yuffie rolled her eyes in an exaggerated gesture. "Geeze, Vince, couldn't you start with a 'nice to see you, Yuffie' or something?"

Vincent ignored her and kept his attention on Cid.

"Yeah, yeah," Cid said with a grunt as he unbolted some massive chunk of machinery from the ship they just landed in. "I got the brat working for me. I needed some help and she needed a job."

"Only because Cloud made me stop more ninja-appropriate activities," Yuffie protested.

"You mean thievery." Vincent said.

Yuffie stuck a tongue out at him and went over to Cid, climbed up and over the section Cid was trying to free, got behind the thing and put her back against it so she might push with her legs against the far support while Cid pulled. Vincent rose an eyebrow at the pair. They had done this before. The dogs were no help at all, after sniffing the newcomers to their satisfaction they took to milling around Cid's feet.

"Get out of the way, you mangy mutts! I don't need any dog help here!" Cid growled.

The dogs ignored him. The scene might have been humorous, but Vincent was feeling rather impatient for sleep, because sleep had to come before they could work on their problem. He pulled up Death Gigas and used his enormous reach to grab the massive chunk of metal machinery around both ends so he could yank it free. He set it gently on the concrete floor while Yuffie fell with a yelp onto her bum in the sudden vacancy behind it. The dogs barked and snarled, but stopped when Vincent changed back, looking from him to their master, confused.

Cid reached over and scratched one of them on the head as he swore at a blackened smear coating one side of the removed module. Vincent leaned over to look. He could see it was some sort of hydraulic control that moved something heavy. Maybe for tilting the propeller units. It looked like it had been on fire and Vincent thought they were probably lucky to have landed.

"Well we sure as fuck aint going anywhere else in this tonight," Cid said.

"Cool!" Yuffie reappeared in their midst, a bundle of excitement. "We'll have to take the truck! Can I drive?"

During this last exchange Erik Snortland's eyes had rounded in wonder, shock probably the only think keeping him from outright terror.

"What kind of people are these?" He whispered to Seri.

"I don't know," she said. "People from Midgar?"

Erik nodded slowly. This was exactly why he never left Bifröst.


	13. Gathering

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy or anything in it.

**A/N: It's been a bit of a break; I think we can resume now. Thanks for your patience. Unfortunately I broke the last chapter in a bad spot. Our heroes had just been picked up by Cid in the airship and sniffed out the beam from the reactor. We backtrack slightly to see Fuhito's reaction. **

Fuhito stood completely still, concealed in the deep shadows of the mostly destroyed reactor in the center of Midgar. His keen eyes and ears focused on the ship moving above him, his delicately shaped eyebrows knitted together behind his glasses. The ship was sweeping to and fro, as if it was searching for something, something the air_. _But as far as Fuhito could tell there wasn't anything up there for them to be looking at. He doubted it was simple coincidence that the thing was flying _exactly_ above where they were operating the mako feed into Odin's machine in Asgaard. Maybe it was the green glow from their operation that had attracted the ship, and it was just keeping a cautious distance. The oscillating, sweeping motion that resembled a search pattern was probably part of a mechanical problem- the thing was rasping and choking, sounding like it might fall out of the sky at any moment. Certainly it wasn't a ShinRa ship; even in its reduced form the company was still too proud, too arrogant, to have such a pathetic excuse for a machine. It had to be a scavenger, one of the many who lived off the carcass of the great city.

As he watched, the ship dropped closer to the ground and Fuhito leaned farther into the shadows of the rubble that hid him. It made one pass low to the reactor ruin and then headed away, and Fuhito let out a breath he was annoyed to find he had been holding. He chided himself for becoming nervous over a Midgar scavenger. But still...

The pale, dispassionate face of Vincent Valentine swam into his mind's eye. There should be no way Valentine could be here; he had left him inside the temple in Bifröst, a good day's travel at very best. But of course Fuhito himself was here, having passed through another doorway that led directly to the Midgar source. That had been a surprise to Fuhito; there was nothing about other ways to get to Asgaard in the old literature. Odin had said it was more of a shoot than a door. One way only, at least for them. The Lifestream, however, could percolate up the other way, back into Asgaard, and that's exactly what they were doing, sending mako energy directly into Odin's machine. It was just a trickle at the moment. In two days it would be a flood. Just two days to hold down the fort, to hole up in this hole in the ground. He was so close. His followers in the camp, the pioneering mothers and fathers of the new world, were protected by the suspension field - if his little invention he left them worked. Nothing like a trial by fire. He pursed his lips with the small thrill felt at the thought of plans so long worked for coming to fruition. And all carried out in elaborate secrecy, the current human population none the wiser. Except that damn, crazy gunman. Valentine was resourceful, and shouldn't be underestimated. Worse yet he'd seen the guy transform when they had activated the nullifier. It had been similar to a demon transformation, Fuhito had bumped into individuals before who carried a demon that could morph its host, but the nullifier should have prevented that. The nullifyer didn't just deactivate materia; it subdued other terrestrial generated mako entities as well, including demons. Even class one demons. Mr. Valentine should not have been able to transform, unless what he was carrying was something else. Fuhito looked to the where Odin was watching the mako tap. An idea had been percolating in his mind regarding Vincent Valentine's alternate form. Odin was a creature not subdued by the nullifier. Rather Odin was controlled, at least in some degree, by a piece of materia specific to him. It was a leash, it could be used to call him, he would appear, he would fight, then he would withdraw. Fuhito had created the nullifyer to break that leash, or at least its hold, so that Odin could become sentient and active in their world. Perhaps Odin wasn't the only of his kind the nullifyer had let loose.

Fuhito stepped carefully around one of the iron girders they had propped up to keep the crumbling structure from falling on their heads and stood behind the massive 'Father of the gods'. He refused to think of how the top of his head failed to reach even Odin's shoulder.

"Odin," Fuhito said in his best caramel and cream voice, "When I freed you from the Hall of the Guardians-"

Fuhito stopped short with his mouth still open, looking at their operation. He then stepped sharply to one of the adjusters they had placed at the opening to the mako tap. They were progressively widening the tap to keep the flow ahead of what the askel at the receiving end could uptake.

"Do you not care if we are delayed?" he snapped at Odin as he heaved and pulled at the large metal bar until he was satisfied with its placement.

"Why should I care about time?" Odin asked, smug in his disinterest.

Fuhito straightened his glasses and neutralized his face. Odin was turning out to be one giant pain in the ass. A giant, arrogant, lazy, pain in the ass.

"In the Hall of the Guardians," Fuhito started again, "There was one Guardian out on summon. A Guardian placed near you, and labeled... 'Lord of Destruction'."

Odin continued to stare into the mako tap, his eyes lackluster under heavy, ponderous lids. "What of him?"

"Who is he? Or... she?"

Odin was silent a moment more and Fuhito waited. He reminded himself it was simply a working parameter of Odin; if he wanted the best result from this creature he had to accept this sluggish timing of his. But something in the back of his head suspected that Odin made him wait simply to assert control and dominance, and it grated on Fuhito's nerves.

"The Cetra had a beautifully apt word for him," Odin finally said, "in your language it would be... Chaos. The natural randomizing of the order that life imposes on the world. Although he always worked somewhat faster than nature."

"Do you know where he is?" Fuhito asked, and then suffered through another long silence.

"Who knows," Odin said, and smiled a little. "He always was the most unpredictable of my generals. And he had a talent for getting himself into trouble".

"I think he may be trouble for us."

There was more waiting as Odin watched the tap. "Life is trouble," he finally said.

Fuhito turned away, having enough of Odin's fatalistic, suicidal attitude. A cough and whimper caught his attention and his eyes fell on the woman, the temple keeper he had dragged along on his journey. He waked over to where the woman was lying on the dirty floor near a crumbling wall of gray concrete. As he stared down at her she coughed again, spasms contracting her body until she wretched and dry heaved between shallow gasps. Her fingers clutched and unclutched the fabric of her torn sweater as she wrapped her arms around her ribcage and rocked slightly, too absorbed by her body's own predilection to even notice her captor. Fuhito removed a sharp blade from his belt and pressed it to her throat, momentarily mesmerized by the sight of the clean metal edge against her white skin. He imagined the knife sinking into her soft flesh; stopping the irritating and incessant coughing. He didn't need her anymore if they wouldn't be going back through the temple. Fuhito was unsure how he was going to reunite with his followers after the machine kicked off, unwinding time back to the pre-human era. But he would walk if he had to – the world would be young again, and with his wilderness skills he could find food and water enough to make the trek cross country. Planet spawned monsters would be few if any without the reactors to upset the Lifestream. But it would be a long journey, and he regretted the loss of Temen. While he pondered, the pressure increased on his blade and a thin trickle of blood seeped around the edge of the blade, dark and shining on against pale skin. He watched, then pulled the knife away. There were a number of unknowns in his current situation and given such the woman was still a potential resource. Fuhito _never_ wasted a resource.

"Hush," he said to her softly, gently, and turned back to watch the green stream.

ccccccccccccccccccccccc

"This does _not_ qualify as driving!" Vincent grabbed the steering wheel over Yuffie's shoulder and narrowly managed to prevent them from colliding with the leaning bulk of what used to be an overpass support.

"Oh, lighten up, Vinnie!" the girl ninja complained as Vincent crawled over the driver's seat from the back, pushing Yuffie out of the way in a tangle of limbs and excessive red garment as he tried to get one long leg onto the break pedal.

"Ow! Vampire, your pointy elbows are like freaking spearheads!" Yuffie complained.

"Hey! Watch your own fucking elbows! Sonofabitch!" Cid pushed Yuffie up from where she had landed, elbow down, on his crotch. She half-fell back against the steering wheel and the vehicle careened off what passed as a road in the fallen city. It rolled over jagged piles of cement rubble, tossing the occupants wildly inside the cab.

"Good thing I got metal reinforced tires on this thing," Cid said, trying to hold a small metallic lighter steady enough to light a cigarette.

Vincent steered around obstacles, trying to get the truck back onto the road. In reality the "road" was just a track of more or less flattened and beaten down rubble, not exactly straight, not exactly free of truck sized chunks of reinforced concrete and equally large holes. "Truck" was also a rather loose designation. Cid's vehicle was a homemade cross between tank and a dune buggy. The wide-set wheels dipped and moved independently, climbing over hard obstructions and displacing or pulverizing less durable matter beneath the truck's oppressive weight. Its roomy interior easily fit three across, and roll bars surrounded them outside the trucks sidewalls. Several of the small, tough looking windows were slid open to allow for launching attacks outside. But it wasn't made to pitch headlong over the ruins of building that were still half standing.

"Mind gettin' back on the road, Vince?" Cid asked, a small spark of concern for his four-wheeled baby finally lighting in one blue eye.

Vincent grunted and steered them back onto the road, only to have to veer sharply again as a figure lurched into the road in front of them. There was a collective hiss from the passengers, not only from the near miss, but from the grotesquely misshapen head and hunched shoulders of the lumbering figure. Its misaligned mouth gaped at them from a face hung with shredded gray flesh and it reached out, almost sadly, towards the occupants.

"Ah, fuck," Cid said, his cigarette now lit and hanging from the corner of his mouth. "Muties! Roll up the windows, don't let 'em touch you!"

Seri and Erik rapidly complied, not needing to hear why that might be a bad thing.

"Just hit 'em Vince," Cid said, "that's why I added the double bumper frame."

But Vincent would have none of it; he steered deftly between several more of what proved to be a small herd of roving muties converging on their position. He increased his speed in hopes of clearing the disturbing group faster, the rapid side to side motion pinging Yuffie between himself and Cid like a pinball.

"Ughlgg," Yuffie made an alarming gurgling noise. "Why are we letting the Turk drive? They all drive like maniacs!"

Vincent spared a split second from of his concentration to give the girl a quick glance. "What _Turks_ have you been riding around with?" he demanded.

"Reno."

Vincent scowled at her, but had to return his attention forward as a mutie flung himself onto the hood of the truck. Its shoulder hit the windshield with a sharp, violent sound and part of its face drug across the smooth surface with enough force to peel off a large swath of skin and leave it behind. Seri and Erik made a startled noise and Cid looked up casually.

"Bullet proof and impact resistant glass," Cid said and blew out a cloud of smoke that caused Vincent's nose to wrinkle.

"Stay away from Reno," Vincent said sharply to Yuffie, who merely rolled her eyes in response. He shot a look up into the rear view mirror at the passengers in the back. Seri was tense, readied, eyes scanning forward. Erik looked as sick as Yuffie might be in a moment, clutching his young son in mild terror.

"You two OK back there?" Vincent asked.

"Fine," Seri said tersely. Erik merely nodded

The vehicle made two more sharp, bone jarring jogs to the right, then another left as Vincent cleared what seemed to be the last of the group. He pushed the accelerator a little harder; he wanted out of this dead city, and into Edge. Edge where the living were, where Tifa had set up her own bar, and a home. He was surprised to feel the strength of the pull from that thought, and he gave the truck a little more juice.

Slowly the road flattened and gained some degree of smoothness. Vincent decelerated to a more respectful speed as he started to see semblances of civilization. The first houses, at the edge of Edge, were only rough, cobbled together structures surrounded by fence and razor wire behind which mean looking dogs patrolled, barking and snarling they passed. Soon neater looking buildings appeared, their lots smaller and less defensive. Eventually they saw a shop, then another, and a bakery closed for the night with a hand painted sign on its window. There were even a few larger buildings, four or five stories, constructed with glass and metal and real construction crews. These stood out all the more for being surrounded by older, destroyed construction, as though they were mushrooms sprouting clean and white from the rotted body of a fallen tree.

Vincent could see Cid glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, and knew the pilot was probably wondering if Vincent would find his way without prompting. Cid was proud of his own sense of direction, but Vincent's was impeccable, a fact that had annoyed Cid on more than one occasion. As the lull in the truck expanded, it became clear that both Cid and Yuffie were watching him. They were waiting to see if he could find Tifa's bar through the rapidly changing Edge, to a place he had only been to once, a visit short and casual before he had quite suddenly disappeared from their lives last year. Maybe they were curious about his ability, or maybe on a more humanistic level wondering if it were important enough for him to remember his way to Tifa. He was a little annoyed himself to find that he didn't even need Gigas' help. Tifa's haven was the closest thing to a home he had.

"Park around the back," Cid finally said as they approached the bar, "that's the only area big enough for this beast."

Vincent drove past the Seventh Heaven sign, now turned off for the night, and he circled around to the back of the bar. He cut the engine and waited while it ran on for a second or two, chortling and popping before falling silent. Vincent raised an eyebrow at Cid.

"What?" Cid asked defensively "Shitty fuel. C'mon, they'll be waiting."

Before they could all vacate the vehicle, the back door to the bar flew open and a figure ran out to meet them. Tifa wrapped arms graceful and strong around Vincent's neck and pulled him close, standing on her toes. He moved his human hand carefully to pat her side in what he hopped would be taken as adequate for an embrace, feeling awkward and disoriented. He supposed he hadn't forgotten how beautiful she was; just repressed it from his thoughts. Her hair smelled like the skin of citrus fruit and he could feel her large breasts pressing against his chest. She pulled away and beamed at him, her smile bright and even, unrestrained warmth lighting in her eyes. Vincent managed to keep his return smile small, his eyes on hers only a moment before shifting away, looking for Cloud.

"Cloud will be down in just a second, come inside!" Tifa said lightly, tugging at his arm.

Instead of following, Vincent rotated towards the newcomers he had brought. He saw the momentary hesitation of surprise on Tifa's face; she hadn't been expecting extra guests. Then, in an instant, it was gone, replaced no doubt with plans of food and beds and social arrangements. She shook hands with Seri and Erik, and cooed over small Elias who turned his crabby, sleepy face into his father's chest. The group filed in through the small back door to see Cloud trotting down the narrow back stairs, looking mildly bewildered. Cid and Yuffie gave him a small smack and shove by way of a greeting, neither moving him in the least, any more than Tifa's gentle touch to his shoulder did. Tifa herded the group into the kitchen and Vincent watched them go, Cid, Yuffie, and Erik. But he seemed to have lost track of Seri. He turned to look behind him and found her, but she kept moving as he did, making him feel a bit ridiculous, like a dog chasing its own tail.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, scowling.

"SOLDIER!" Seri hissed, and ducked again behind one of Vincent's broad shoulders.

Vincent turned and looked at Cloud, the confused expression on the blonde's face increasing. He put a hand on Seri's shoulder and only succeeded partly in pulling her out from behind him.

"Seri, this is Cloud. He's a... friend," Vincent said, hoping the sternness in his voice would help her get herself under control.

Seri peeked around Vincent's shoulder and met the intense blue of Cloud's eyes. Mako blue eyes.

"I don't like the way he is staring at me. Why is he doing that?" she whispered.

"Because you're acting crazy?"

Seri scowled. "I forgot my bag," she said, and went back out the door, careful to keep Vincent between herself and the disturbing SOLDIER.

Vincent turned and upended his palms at Cloud. "Apparently your looks alarm her."

Cloud knitted his eyebrows. Of all the infuriating things said of his looks, "alarming" was never among them.

"Your eyes," Vincent clarified, "she... fought against SOLDIERs while in the Maritee resistance."

Cloud nodded in understanding. The ShinRa forces had been ruthless against the Mariteen fighters, no wonder she was skittish. He stared out the door after her, and after losing some apparent inner struggle, he spoke.

"Vincent?" Cloud advanced until he was uncomfortably close to the gunman, at least by Vincent's standards. "Is she... Cetra? Or part Cetra?"

Vincent looked calmly into Cloud's face, and a compassionate weight seeped into his limbs. He sadly realized that Cloud was still looking for Cetra, or some remnant of Cetra. For some piece of Aerith. But Cloud wasn't completely off base in this case; he could probably sense the bit of spiritual oddness in Seri.

"It's not what you think," Vincent said. He had meant to be kind, but his voice came out as it almost always nearly did. Flat. Cold.

"Are you sure? Because there's something-"

"It's not Cetra," Vincent repeated, and felt a small pang for the resulting hurt in Cloud's eyes. But he convinced himself there was no sense in feeling bad over it. Firmness would serve Cloud better in this than coddling. "She has a slight demon intrusion. It's not dangerous."

Cloud nodded, and as Vincent went back outside to follow Seri he started to wonder himself. His mind ran over their visit to Asgaard. Seri's talent for the Cetra language. Chaos' stories. The infusion of Freyja into the Meriteen people, at a time when only Cetra should have been on earth. Seri's ability to sing and soothe the inhuman things within him, and the swirling of the Lifestream about her when she did so, as he had seen in her Lifestream scope. Maybe Cloud's suspicions should not be dismissed so quickly.

He found Seri leaning against the hood of the truck gazing out into the nightlights of Edge. He was pretty sure she hadn't forgotten a bag or anything else out here.

"Hey," he said gently. She didn't start or jump when he spoke, even though he was sure he had made no noise. He didn't know if it was because she expected him or because she had learned to sense his demony self coming.

"Seri..." he stopped, wondering how to phrase his question.

"I know. I'm sorry," she said, turning around, head hung and lips pursed. "I overreacted. I will apologize to your SOLDIER friend."

"Thank-you," he said. "And he was not SOLDIER. Just another Shin-Ra experiment. Like myself."

She nodded.

"Cloud is also bright and perceptive." Vincent paused. Planet, was he really admitting that about Cloud? "He brought up a point that I'm wondering about. Is it possible... you carry some Cetra? Or that Cetra bloodlines exist somewhere in your people?"

"Vincent," she spoke slowly, as if to a child, "the Cetra are extinct. How do you two even come to wonder about this?"

"Because we knew one." Vincent exhaled slowly. It seemed now _he_ was the one looking for Cetra where they weren't. What a gaping, painful hole Aerith had left in their lives.

"You knew... a Cetra?" Seri sounded unsure if his sincerity. Or sanity. "A living being? They're not extinct?"

"Maybe not. The woman we knew, Aerith, she believed herself to be the last. She could communicate with the Lifestream and mako entities from it. Cloud..." he began, and then stopped. The details of Cloud's involvement with Aerith could wait for Cloud's telling, if in fact he chose to share. "Cloud has more mako exposure than anyone we know of right now. And like SOLDIER he feels things related to the Lifestream. Only moreso."

"He feels me?" she asked.

Vincent nodded.

"And you? You come to this suspicion because I speak to your mako-made entities? Your demons?"

"That, and because..." He paused, knowing it was going to look like he hadn't been forthright. Like the Turk he had been, and maybe always would be. He sighed. "Because I looked at you through your scope while you were singing, that night on the roof. I could see the Lifestream through the filter winding around you. Responding to your song, I think."

Seri frowned. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because I didn't associate it with anything at the time. Honest." He hung his head a little and peeked at her under his heavy fringe of dark hair.

Seri looked at him suspiciously, but then let a small, resigned smile lift one corner of her mouth. She pushed a lock of hair from his face, brushing the red headband but careful not to touch any of Vincent's skin.

"I don't talk to the Lifestream," she said. "I don't hear the voices of the dead or any of that stuff Cetra were supposed to be able to do. I can't even read the stream without technology."

Vincent nodded, but was still preoccupied with the idea. "I've been wondering," he said. "About the comment Chaos made where he seemed to make no distinction between the Mariteen people being 'Cetra, human, whatever' ".

Seri leaned her butt against the truck and Vincent did the same, leaning on the driver's door, his elbows resting on the ridge under the window.

"You know there's a theory," she said, "that the Cetra didn't so much die out as evolved."

"Into us?"

"Sure. Why not?"

Vincent smiled a little at the thought and leaned the back of his head. A bit of Cetra in them all, a piece something as brave and warm as Aerith, in even him. He looked up into the stars, so much clearer now that Midgar had been flattened. The air was better for it too, clean smelling in fact, though he rather missed the salt tang of the sea near Bifrost.

"Your 'birth defect' of bluing," he said, "that's an expression of something added to the gene pool of your people thousands of years ago. You're like a thowback."

Seri turned from her star gazing to scowl at him, but Vincent only smiled a little more.

"Freyja's intrusion would have had to be at the time of the Cetra. Maybe you have more Cetra in you as well. Maybe you're good at their language because you're a throwback."

Vincent liked this idea as well, but Seri seemed all the more put out. _Fine_, he thought, _let her be grumpy_.

_**Grumpy! **_ **«Grμmρy!»** **.GЯUMPY!. grphra! **Echoed in Vincent's head. Apparently everyone was awake, but even that wasn't bothering him tonight.

"Throwback," he said at Seri again.

"Demon-boy," she retorted, apparently without thinking as it simply gave him another opening. She tensed, waiting for it, and then in the moment she thought he wasn't going to take that opening, the moment she relaxed, he sensed it and pounced.

"Demon-girl," he hissed, the wicked whisper requiring him to duck an elbow she swung at his head. He caught her arm, turned it into a joint lock that good training and fast reflexes obviated the need for any force, and gently pushed her towards the door where laughter was already spilling out along with the warm glow of lights.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" Vincent said, releasing Seri in front of himself. "Seri Kusa, this is Cloud Strife."

She stepped forward, braver now since she had learned that Cloud wasn't actually SOLDIER, and Vincent envied the ease with which they shook hands despite the fact that not five minutes ago she had wanted nothing to do with Cloud.

"Hi," Cloud said, a strange longing on his face as he looked into her eyes, the blue flecks still left from the Yeega bomb mirroring his own color.

"Glad to meet you Cloud," she replied, "and I know what you think. But I'm sorry. I am not Cetra, if that's what you seek."

Cloud looked disappointed, and lost, but he steadied himself with a neutral nod. Then he smiled a little, a small, beautiful curve appearing at each corner of his mouth. Seri smiled back, suddenly captivated by his face.

"Uh, kitchen," he said, guiding Seri by the arm into the next room. Vincent followed, alone and mildly resenting Cloud's lovable blondeness.

cccccccccccccccccccccc

After snacks and conversation and far more noisy socializing than Vincent had been accustomed to in the last year, after promises to fill in more details in the morning and honest to Gaia showers, Vincent found himself alone at last on a makeshift bed in Cloud's small office. With so many people in the house he had opted for privacy over comfort and let the others have the real guest beds. The thin mat was plenty adequate for his needs, and he had fallen asleep quickly and dreamlessly. But only for a few hours. Somewhere in the middle of the night a whispering had invaded his sleep.

_**You forgot something, Vincent.**_

Vincent tried to ignore the voice, tried to keep sleeping.

_**It's important, and you forgot it.**_

Vincent pushed himself back down into sleep, hoping the voice would give up.

_**Vinceeeeent...**_

_Shut up! _Vincent snapped inside his head. It was one of Chaos' favorite games – at some point the demon had discovered how bothered humans were by the idea that they had forgotten something: to turn off the stove, to lock the door, to pack the ammunition. At times when Vincent's mind was not sharp because he was fatigued or asleep, Chaos used it to torment him. Half the time it worked.

_**And I know what it is...**_

_What? _Vincent snapped, awake now, _What in Gaia's name are suggesting I forgot?_

The inside of his head went silent, and Vincent was certain the demon had nothing. Or at least almost certain, as certain as a man can be after the writhing suggestion of something _forgotten_ and been seeded into his brain.

_You just want me to get up so you can roam around! You big baby!_

There was a wicked cackling, and not just from Chaos. He wasn't the only one awake.

_Time, Gigas?_

**« ώoμldη'τ yoμ liқε to қηoώ? » **

He gave Death Gigas a mental shove, and from this much weaker demon he got his answer readily.

**« ƒoμr ƒiƒτy-oηε αm » **

Vincent pulled his pillow over his head, as if the disruption were coming from outside his ears.

_**You should get up, and pay more attention.**_

Vincent tried to ignore this next tactic as well, but his ears were picking up a sound. It was a light, familiar tapping, and now he was sure it had been going on for at least as long as Chaos had been bugging him. He must have really been tired for it not to have woken him. He rolled over looked at Cloud's small, cluttered desk and saw Seri, the light from the computer monitor flooding her face.

"Why are you up?" he croaked.

"Sorry," she answered, "did I wake you?"

"Maybe, in way."

"Chaos woke you?"

Vincent grunted, wondering if she knew or was just guessing.

"Want me to sing him back to sleep?" Seri asked, focused on the screen, her voice distracted.

Vincent felt Chaos perk up in anticipation. Apparently the bugger enjoyed the idea, or he at least enjoyed the attention.

"No," Vincent said, rousing himself from the floor and wrapping the red cloak around his bare torso. His clothes had gotten a quick wash and were now drying, so he had borrowed some sort of loose fitting bottoms from Cloud. They were too short for him, and he felt ridiculous, but he was glad for to have something clean to wear. Cloud had also loaned him a top, which he couldn't wear for obvious reasons. Not unless he wanted to slice a hole in the back the borrowed garment.

"What are you doing?" Vincent leaned in over her shoulder and could see she was hunting through folders, opening files that contained text with symbols mixed in with readable English.

"I couldn't sleep after a few hours, something was bugging me and I remembered Tifa said they have infoweb here," Seri said, "I was able to access my notes on the server at UMeid. Since I left my laptop in Bifröst." She opened another file and scrolled down. "Here it is."

Vincent leaned closer, feeling all four of his demons leaning in for a look as well. He felt like a small crowd breathing down Seri's neck, even if it was only him doing the actual breathing. He backed of to where he could just read the text if he squinted a bit.

"Feeding the machine, the great green line," she read aloud, "Blue may be spent inside the line, starve the machine, a small sacrifice."

Seri looked up at Vincent. "I had put this and some other stuff aside because I couldn't figure out what "machine" was doing in any Cetra verse. I figured I had misinterpreted. But Odin's time killer is a machine-"

"Fed by a great green line," Vincent finished for her. "The mako stream coming out of the middle of the old reactor. And the 'blue' we can use to stop the feed?"

"Materia?" Seri guessed, "Do you have any blue materia?"

"Not with me."

Seri frowned at that, and Vincent felt a bit as if he had let her down for not having a piece stashed away in his one of his endless pockets.

"I'm sure Cloud has some... or Yuffie," he said, thinking Yuffie's was likely to be Cloud's as well, and that prying it out of her would be like trying to pull the teeth from a snake with your fingers.

"Vincent... do you know how we're going to stop them?"

"Maybe," Vincent said, "I have a couple of ideas on how to interrupt the stream, and I'm hoping Cid may have some as well."

Seri had pushed some more keys and small images of folders began to fly across the screen, with a small number underneath of 2:12.

"Downloading?" Vincent asked.

"Yeaaah," Seri yawned. "I want to have all the data here, including the translator programs, in case it can help."

"You should go back to bed," Vincent said, thinking he would like to sleep for those two hours and twelve minutes himself. But Seri didn't answer, her head had fallen against his arm and she seemed to be asleep.

"Seri?" Vincent nudged her once, twice, but she didn't move. He sighed and pulled her out of the chair and down to his meager sleeping mat. Chaos was agitating his wings, moving them around in way that threatened to keep Vincent awake if he didn't let the demon put them where he wanted them.

_OK_, Vincent said, giving in and vaguely resenting the things that the need for sleep made him do. His cloak-like demon wings swirled and moved until they wrapped around them both as he and Seri lay down.

_Gigas, wake me up in 2 hours _Vincent said. He had no desire to be discovered in this... cuddly position in the morning.

**«ώhy?»** Gigas asked defiantly, and Vincent's inner self sighed, tired of bickering.

_Because Seri wants to see the computer in two hours. _Vincent said, and was glad to feel the positive flow from Gigas indicating cooperation. _Now_ the damn demon was happy to do it. It hadn't been a lie; Vincent was sure Seri would want to see her data. An outright lie was always detected, but Vincent knew that he could get away with telling part-truths. Grateful for small favors, he let his eyes close and fell immediately into sleep- quiet, uninterrupted sleep at last.


	14. Breakfast

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy or anything in it.

**«ώαkε μρ!!!»**

Vincent jolted awake, hand on his gun, heart rate spiking to an action-ready level. With a slow breath he released his body's tension. Gigas was an effective alarm clock, if a startling one.

**«sεri ώαητ τo gετ μρ»**

Vincent rose up on one elbow and looked down at Seri, still asleep and wrapped in the expanse of red. He wondered why Gigas hadn't hollered in her head. Maybe he couldn't, or just didn't want to. Vincent gave it a try, maybe _he _could yell in her head, somehow through the demon connection. He gave a tremendous mental holler to try it. All four demons roiled and hollered back, Chaos including a painful jab in his head that actually radiated down the back of his neck. Vincent blinked twice, his eyes watering a bit from the assault. His 'head voice' must have been much louder than he realized. But it seemed to be confined to his head, because Seri slept on, oblivious.

"Hey," Vincent said, his actual voice a gentle contrast to his mental attempt.

Seri's eyes fluttered open, unfocused and reluctant. She shut them again and moved a bit.

"Guess I fell asleep," she murmured.

Vincent didn't respond; it was against his principles to encourage idiot statements of the obvious.

"I was thinking, or dreaming, I guess," she said, her eyes still closed and her speech slurred a bit with sleep. "That I was in the computer lab back at school. Sometimes we'd stay up all night, not wanting to wait to analyze that evening's data until the next day, or couldn't because of classes.... There was only one couch in the adjacent lounge, and it could fit two if you lay close together. There were always people in the computer lab in the middle of the night, and they had this rule, you had to share the couch, even if the other person was some smelly grad student you didn't like."

"Are you comparing me to a smelly graduate student?" Vincent asked.

"Hardly," she said, rolling inward until her forehead again fell against Vincent's arm. Chaos moved a wing to re-wrap them both and Vincent stopped him, forcing his cloak back into the form of inanimate object. Despite being such an energetic and aggressive beast, Chaos liked to sleep. Vincent gathered that in his native form Chaos slept cocooned in those wings, like some sort of bat. The first few times Vincent had woken up ensconced so outside a coffin he had all but panicked for not being able move arms or legs.

"Up," he said sternly, nudging Seri again with his arm. He couldn't actually get up until she did, lying on his cloak as she was.

Seri rolled slowly up and slid smoothly into the chair without fully opening her eyes. She opened a computer folder that easily had hundreds of files in it. Vincent stretched his long legs until his feet, in two slightly different color socks (also borrowed from Cloud), bumped into a gray and slightly rusted filing cabinet. He stretched his arms over his head and hit the wall before he could get them all the way extended. Then he sat up and turned his nose to breakfast. Sausage. Toast, buttered. Something sharp, sour, probably a juice.

**owrgh!**

Vincent smiled a little at Galian's growling sounds for 'orange'. Galian liked oranges. And as enticing as all these smells were, there was one overpowering them all, the one that _really_ made him want to get out of bed. Coffee. He hadn't had coffee in months. He stood abruptly, saw that Seri was sorting through file after file without opening anything that looked interesting, and slipped out to the tiny laundry. His clothes were still damp, so it looked like he was stuck in Cloud's jammies for a few more hours. With thoughts of coffee on his mind he went for the kitchen.

"Cuuuute, Vincent." Tifa smiled at him from the stove.

Vincent, mortified, realized he had forgotten to cover his less than dignified self with his cloak, and at the sight of Tifa in shorts and a T-shirt forgot himself again and almost auto-wrapped himself in the thing. He remembered just in time and grabbed the edges with his hands, like a normal human, and pulled them across his bare chest.

"Oh don't be so self conscious!" Tifa chided. "You're among friends here."

Vincent looked away, sure that he could feel Tifa trying hard to be patient with him, maybe getting frustrated with him.

"We're just happy you're here," she said, concentrating on the pan in front of her.

Vincent wanted to play nice, but those kinds of comments always made him uncomfortable. He never had any idea how to respond. So he skirted around the edge of her attention, as he always did, looking deliberately away from her. He stared instead at the plate she had filled and adroitly set on the table in front of him.

"Sit," she commanded.

He sat, but he didn't eat. She looked at him questioningly, but he didn't speak.

"Vincent? Is there something else I can get you?"

She had to wait another few seconds to get an answer.

"Fork?"

Tifa pulled a fork from a drawer, biting back a laugh because Vincent acted as though getting a fork was a huge favor. And for Vincent it _did_ feel like asking for a favor. He hated asking for things, and he hated being waited on. He politely stabbed a forkful of food and chewed. Tifa gave him the orange juice and he was able to quiet Galian's incessant 'owrgh'ing. But he still wanted that coffee. The smell was about making him crazy, and he could see it, in a coffee maker next to the stove. He considered asking, rejected the idea, and instead slipped silently out of his chair. He opened a cupboard door, looking for a mug. He found plates. With one finger he snaked another door open, one closer to Tifa's head.

"Gah! Vincent!" Tifa, startled, dropped her spatula, then in a flash caught it before it hit the floor. She used to give it a good shake in his direction. "No sneaking!"

"Sorry." Vincent cringed a little. He hadn't meant to sneak; it was just hard for him not to. Especially while wearing Cloud's comfy socks.

Tifa's face softened into a sympathetic smile. She remembered the noise and commotion of the previous night, most of it focused on Vincent. Exactly the type of thing that tended to overwhelm him.

"What do you need?" Tifa asked gently.

"Mug?" Vincent said hopefully.

"Ohhh, your coffee!" Tifa brightened. "I forgot about you and your thing for coffee."

She reached up and towards him to a cupboard, and Vincent leaned away to make sure her arm didn't accidentally brush him.

"Still take it black?"

"Please."

She poured the coffee and passed it to him, and he retreated back to his chair. From somewhere outside the kitchen a commotion started.

"Oh no, me first! Cid's gonna eat all the freaking eggs!"

"Hey!"

"Ow!"

There was a rapid stomping of feet on the stair and Vincent sighed. So much for the quiet morning coffee. The children were up. Vincent shoveled down half his plate of food down in anticipation of the impending invasion, and stopped short to stare at the two figures who came in first. They were actual children. He had been thinking only of the often exuberant adults. He hadn't seen these yet; they must have been in bed when they arrived last night.

"Hi Tifa!" The little girl said brightly as both she and a small boy, neither older than eight, glommed onto Tifa's legs. "Who's that?" she asked pointing at Vincent.

"Don't point, Marlene, it's not polite. Marlene, Denzel, this is Vincent.

"Hi Vincent!" The little girl, Marlene, bounded over and wiggled herself up onto Vincent's lap. Vincent pressed himself hard into the back of the chair and tried to hold himself, and especially his precious coffee, away from the miniature human.

"Oh, Marlene, no honey, Vincent doesn't like to be... sat on. Sorry, Vincent," Tifa said with an apologetic smile as she gently pulled the girl from Vincent.

Vincent drew a breath, meaning to say 'it was alright' or some such nonsense, some untrue nonsense. The truth was he didn't like being sat on. Except maybe while he was wearing the Galian Beast. That had worked OK for him.

"Hey, Vincent." Cloud's sleepy frame filled the small doorway, shirtless and in a pair of pajama bottoms much like Vincent was wearing. Vincent had to admit he looked good, healthy, muscular. Well fed. He noticed Tifa give him an appraisal of a different nature, but a furtive one. So his feeling of last night seemed correct. For some ridiculous reason they were not together.

He nodded a greeting to Cloud and watched him a few more seconds as the blond moved in a jerky motion, side to side so as to block Yuffie's way. The smaller ninja was squawking and pinching and kicking from behind him, all to no avail. Finally she must have gotten a hold of something sensitive, or at least unacceptable to Cloud, because his hips jerked forward and away, leaving enough space for her to squeeze through. Vincent proactively slid himself forward until his ribcage hit the table. He didn't think Yuffie would try to sit on him, she was a bit old for that, but once in a morning was enough for him. He managed to down the rest of his breakfast before Yuffie got a plate and sat right next to him.

Cid came in next, a cigarette already in his mouth. Tifa gave him one stern look, noticed it wasn't lit and therefore not technically breaking the 'no smoking in the house' rule, and went back to getting plates for the kids. Erik came in last, holding the hand of his boy Elias. He released Elias, who instinctively ran to join his own kind, and with a little encouraging from Tifa the boy Denzel helped Elias with his plate and brought him to a smaller kid's table off to the side.

Vincent watched this whirlwind around him, thinking the kitchen would explode if it had to hold one more person, when he heard a door open and his name hollered from somewhere on the other side of the house.

"VINCENT!"

Vincent looked around the cramped kitchen. The arrival of Barrett completed them, but Barrett actually counted for _two_ people. Kitchen explosion was immanent. With inhuman grace and speed, Vincent bussed his plate into the sink and snatched a full one from a mildly surprised Cloud who had relieved Tifa at the stove.

"Seri's working on your computer; I'm going to bring her a plate," Vincent explained, and in two long strides made his escape.

Cloud's office was only ten feet away from the busy kitchen, but the noise fell away exponentially as he walked down the hallway. By comparison the dim office was a dark, quiet, cocoon. The hum of the computer fan was audible, constant and soothing, and he could tell from the cadence in the kitchen that he wasn't missed.

"Breakfast," he said simply, setting the plate down next to her.

"Oh, thank-you," Seri said, and absently took his coffee cup from him and sipped gently, not noticing the scowl it produced on his face. But he sighed and let it go.

"Find anything interesting?" Vincent asked.

"Not exactly, just re-reading, reviewing, in case there's something that makes sense later. This whole puzzle we're unwinding is a lot like translating these old texts, you have to keep as much information in your head at once as you can so you can see the pattern, make the connection. But it's a little like juggling too many balls."

"Well don't let your head blow up," Vincent said, and sat back down on his makeshift bed and watched her drink his coffee while picking food off her plate without looking away from the screen.

"Sounds like quite a crowd out there," she commented.

"There is."

"More of your friends?"

Vincent hesitated. "They're good people."

Now Seri did stop and look at Vincent. "You didn't answer the question."

"I didn't want to speak for them."

Seri looked at him for a long moment, then with a shrug turned back to her screen. "You know, usually people let you know when it's OK to refer to them as a friend. Like they fly out in the middle of the night to pick you up, take you in and feed you, yell your name across the house at breakfast."

Vincent felt a moment of shagrin for his attitude. Put that way, it sounded like maybe he was the one not extending the courtesy of friendship.

"They are friends," he corrected.

Seri smiled and Chaos chuckled somewhere nearby. _**She got you on that one.**_

_I'll get her on the next, _Vincent replied.

"They are also an effective and talented team," he said. "We've worked together before and we'll start planning right after breakfast."

Seri's smile widened. "I knew you'd be on top of this."

"Vince! Where the fuck are ya?" Cid's yell cut into the office haven from down the hall.

Vincent and Seri exchanged and amused look.

"They are also fast eaters. Ready?"

ccccccccc

Seri and Vincent returned to the kitchen while the breakfast dishes were being put away, and Seri stopped in the doorway, a bit stunned. She had meant to offer her help in cleaning up, but honestly didn't know where she would fit in. Cid was tossing plates to Cloud who snatched them out of the air was scrubbing them with unnatural speed. She shouldn't have been surprised by that; she'd seen Soldiers move fast, too fast, too precise, too... everything. Too much of the Lifestream stuffed into their bodies through some monstrous process of ShinRa's. Vincent too, she knew he was enhanced in the same way. But Tifa was drying at nearly the same speed, and her eyes had no tell-tale glow. Yuffie was balancing tall stacks of freshly cleaned and dried glasses on each open palm, until she abruptly fell over. Tifa reached out and snatched one stack out of the air before a single glass separated, and on the other side of her was Vincent, standing with the second stack of glasses in one hand and Yuffie in the other. Seri turned briefly, her brain still unable to accept that he wasn't behind her instead of across the kitchen. She slowly shook her head at him as he deposited the glasses in the cupboard and Yuffie into a chair. With the table now clear, a black man with muscles bulging on top of muscles and what looked like an entire arsenal instead of one arm picked _up_ the table while the pilot Cid grabbed a broom and with a flourish of rapid precision swept away what must have been every crumb in existence.

Seri looked across the small room to Erik, who was also pressed close to the wall as if he were desperate to stay out of the way. She scooted along the wall to get to him. The sound of several children playing came from the next room and she concluded Elias had found some playmates.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

Erik stared at her, his face a mixture of confusion and inner struggle. "I remember everything," he finally said, his voice tight. "I remember what I did."

"Don't think about that now," Seri said. "You'll need your wits to concentrate on the job at hand. I think these people can help."

Erik nodded with as much control and determination as he could manage, and watched the strange cleanup display before him. Within another few seconds they were done, and Seri and Erik were motioned to sit at the table. Seri found herself seated next to the large black man. He stuck out one calloused, broad hand.

"Barett," he said, his hand swallowing hers.

"Seri," she said, "And I guess you met Erik. We came with Vincent."

"Yeah, yeah, Tifa told me. Good thing, Vincent's a rotten host." He shot Vincent a wolf like smile and Vincent scowled, sandwiched on the other side of the table between Yuffie and Tifa. The two women had found something funny to talk about and were chattering on and gesturing wildly on each side of him as though he were not there.

"Alright, pipe down," Cloud's said. His voice was quiet, but the group immediately quieted and turned their attention to him. "First, Vincent, um, welcome back."

There was a smattering of clapping and general positive comments, and one suggestive whistle. Vincent gave Yuffie an evil look.

"OK," Cloud continued, "Since we're all here now, could we get an update, Vincent?"

Vincent took one look around the table, the attention entirely focused on him. He took one breath to compose his report.

"Four days ago, in a small town on the eastern coast called Bifrost, I stumbled on a radical fringe group apparently led by the ex-avalanche member Fuhito Hori." Vincent paused to let that sink in.

"We believe their goal to be activation of an ancient machine, a machine made by a race that predates Cetra, a race more powerful than Cetra. A race that primarily resided in a world separate from ours but connected to it by some sort of doorways. The members of this race, or what's left of it, include our summon creatures- Ifrit, Odin, the Bahamuts. I've been to this other world and saw these beings held in stasis there. I entered through a door in Bifrost and was returned via another here to Midgar, or more precisely above the city, from where Cid was kind enough to collect me and my companions last night."

The group stared at him, Yuffie with her mouth hanging open. Cid looked his usual bored.

"While in this other world, the main city of which is called Asgaard, I saw this machine. It's real and the process to fire it up has already started."

"What does this machine do?" Barret asked.

"Motherfucker is s'posed to run time backwards," Cid answered. "That's what ya said last night, Vince. Do you really think it can do that?"

"Is Fuhito an idiot?" Vincent asked.

Those at the table who knew anything about Fuhito shook their heads somberly.

"Everything else gathered from the Cetra legends regarding Asgaard has been found to corroborate Fuhito's claim, as far as we can tell." Vincent looked at Seri, eyebrows raised to indicate she should take the floor.

"The Cetra data I've collected, poetry we often call it because it tends to be... less concrete than our modern communication," Seri said, looking around the group but avoiding Cloud's unnerving, mako gaze, "Refers to a threat residing in Asgaard that will 'erase all that is known' and mentions a 'machine of Odin's that is fed by a great green line'. The phrase... 'Lest against the past you would sin'," Seri looked up at Erik to get a positive nod, "Comes from a legend from the people in Bifrost, who have been doorkeeping one of these passages to Asgaard. All is consistent with the claims of Fuhito, that he was planning to back up time to a pre-ShinRa, pre industrialized time."

"While in Asgaard," Vincent continued, "we observed the machine accepting a line of mako flow through one of these doorways, a line that appears to be coming from the middle of the old reactor in Midgar. We've lost track of Odin, Fuhito, and a prisoner of Fuhito's, Erik's wife, Nyssa."

The group looked at Erik, who swallowed hard as he nodded his head.

"I think they're at the old reactor opening up this flow, feeding the machine until its reservoir is full enough to operate," Vincent said

"How much time?" Tifa asked. "Before the machine can start?"

Vincent prodded Gigas for an answer.

"One day, seventeen hours. And fourteen minutes."

Several eyebrows went up at the odd precision of Vincent's estimate, but nobody questioned him.

"I'd rather not take that to the wire," Vincent said, "I'd like to cut the feed well before that."

Vincent looked to Cloud, who nodded.

"Your baby," Cloud said, and Vincent nodded back.

Seri smiled a little at the two men as she watched the careful and skillful exchange. The ex-SOLDIER, or pseudo ex-SOLDIER, whatever he was, was clearly the standing leader of this group, and his quiet intensity and control impressed Seri. But he was giving his group to Vincent.

"We need reconnaissance before we can construct a plan." Vincent stood up as Cloud unfurled a large, ragged roll of paper on the kitchen table. It was an old map of Midgar that had been marked and reworked to represent the city as it now stood. Or, more correctly, didn't stand. The map was obviously heavily used, and everybody grabbed the edge in front of them to keep it from curling. Cloud took a pencil out of his back pocket as he and Vincent leaned over the thing.

"This zolom nest seems to have died out," Cloud said, erasing a mark on the south side of the city.

Cid took the pencil from Cloud. "Some new fucking muties here," he said, making a mark along the road they had driven last night from Cid's shop into Edge.

"Damn," Cloud muttered. "I've been using that road. I hate taking the bike through muties."

"Is there a road clear to the reactor?" Vincent asked, studying the preponderance of marks that increased in density toward the middle of the city.

Cloud shook his head. "Nobody goes there. It'll be thick with nasties."

"How are we going to sneak up on Odin while making a ruckus and fighting through monsters?" Yuffie asked.

"How are we going to sneak up on Odin period? Even to look at him?" Tifa asked "Doesn't he have precog, or perception?"

"Perception," Vincent said, and then thought to check. He knew Chaos didn't have precognition – an ability to feel an attack shortly before it occurred; that skill came to Vincent as part of his own mako enhancement. Chaos had perception, an ability to feel people or intelligent creatures that were observing or approaching.

_**He is the same as I. Only you mako poisoned have precog.**_

"No precog," Vincent repeated. "But the perception is a problem. We won't be able to observe his operation without his detection unless we could do it remotely. Unless we had a..."

Vincent stopped short with his eyes fixed on a small object near the floor. He had seen it earlier and dismissed it. It wasn't about to attack him, so it hadn't lit up his precog, and his perception hadn't lit up either, because it wasn't exactly an intelligent creature. It wasn't a creature at all, but it was observing them. He was out of his chair and had grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck before it could dart away. He knew once he touched it that it wasn't flesh and bones at all. It was mechanical.

"What is this doing here?" he demanded, giving the robotic cat a shake in the general direction of his companions, Just like a real cat, the tabby wriggled, clawed, and tried to bite him. The motion was good, but not perfectly convincing.

"Relax, Vincent," Cloud said, "It's a Cait Sith model."

"Is Reeve listening?"

"No," Cloud said, then gave a look to Tifa. "No way. It just has some reaction programs, to behave like a cat. Reeve gave him to us because Marlene is allergic to real cats. It's a really old model; his transmitter and receiver are shorter range. And right now they aren't even connected."

"But... it could transmit, and receive commands?" Vincent asked, giving the cat another little shake. It went through an identical clawing and biting fit, and went still after the same amount of time.

"Yeah," Cloud said. "There's a control box for him somewhere."

Tifa got up and rummaged through a junk drawer. After setting corks, rubber bands, a couple of cupboard knobs, a broken scissors, and four pens onto the counter she finally came out with a small plastic box the size of a pack of cigarettes. She used a fingernail to scrape a chunk of something red and sticky from one side before handing it to Cid.

"Should we call Reeve to help?" Tifa asked.

Vincent thought for a moment, staring at the fake cat. The fake cat stared back. "I expect between Cid and I we can get the cat to work for us. I don't think we want to bring ShinRa into this. The temptation to use this thing, to restore ShinRa to its former glory, might be too great."

"You mean they might set the machine just far enough back avoid the catastrophe? It could bring back Midgar." Barret said.

"Could bring back Nibelheim," Tifa mused.

"Go back before ShinRa ruined Wutai," Yuffie added.

The group became silent, each thought turning inward. The next idea was the obvious one; if they could back up time they could maybe try to prevent one thing, the thing that brought them all their ills. Maybe they could prevent Sephiroth from... being. Prevent his life, maybe even prevent his birth. Vincent's heart made an erratic jog in rhythm at the thought of having a second chance at that in particular.

"Stop it!" Cloud's voice, so abnormally sharp, focused all of their attention to him. "Quit thinking like that, all of you! We are not going to try and use this thing, some freaking time machine that's gonna screw everything up we fought for or maybe just make us relive the whole sequence again!" His voice caught, and face reddened just a bit as the group stared.

"I'm not doing that," he said, calming himself. "I can't do that."

The group broke into a collective murmur of support, agreement, and apologies as they returned their attention to finding clues on the map as to how they might deploy their anticipated robotic-cat spy. Vincent watched, sullen and silent, his gaze fixed on Cloud.

_No guts, no glory, Strife_ he thought, and heard the sinister chuckling of many voices somewhere deep inside himself.


	15. Reconnaissance

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy or anything in it.

**A/N: Just a note that I may have made a canon violation. Cars exist in Final Fantasy, but I don't know what side the driver is on. Probably the right, as they drive on the left side in Japan, but I have the driver placed on the left, as we do it in the US.**

"Sleepy?"

Seri pulled her head off the bar and blinked her eyes open to see Tifa standing over her, a cup of something hot and fragrant in each hand. It was only ten in the morning, but her recent lack of sleep was dragging on her. The morning light filtered into the bar room, strange and stuffy in a place meant to come alive after dark.

"Thanks," Seri said, taking a cup of tea and noticing Tifa's hands, neatly manicured, but with nails trimmed short and what looked like hints of calluses across the backs of her knuckles.

"Didn't sleep much last night, I guess," Seri explained "Got up in the middle of the night and borrowed your infoweb connection."

"Ooooh," Tifa said, taking a sip of tea, forgoing the bar stool to lean instead against the bar. Her reddish brown eyes glinted knowingly and somewhat mischievously at Seri over the cup's rim. She hadn't forgotten that Vincent was sleeping in the office where the computer was.

"It's not like that," Seri said quickly.

"I didn't say anything. Not that I would."

Seri laughed a little. Tifa seemed like a stand-up gal, not at all stuck up on herself despite her stunning figure and long, smooth hair. So many of the girls Seri had met since leaving home were preoccupied with hair, clothes, makeup, and bizarre accoutrements such as false fingernails, and they seemed somehow offended by Seri's lack of interest in these things. Often she could barely communicate with these creatures. But Tifa didn't even have makeup on.

"I think it's the stress from the last couple days," Seri said, "I get all jacked up or something and can't stay asleep for more than a few hours. Since the war… well sleeping's just gotten abnormal in general."

Tifa nodded. "I know what you mean; the adrenaline and extended emotional trauma, it messes with your system." She sipped her tea, both women thinking, remembering. "What are you looking at?"

"You mean what was I looking at before fell asleep?" Seri mopped up a dollop of sleep drool on the printout with her shirtsleeve. "It's the Cetra material I've translated that maybe relates to a way to interrupt the power to Odin's machine. I printed out everything that the search function showed had 'machine', or the colors 'blue' or 'green'. I hadn't made the connection between some of this stuff before, and now I see there's quite a lot of attention paid to color- especially red, green, and blue. The doorway to Asgaard, they called it the rainbow bridge, cycled between red, green, and blue."

Seri spread the papers on the bar and Tifa sat down on a bar stool and looked at them as well.

"Here," Seri said, "this is the piece that I'm trying to figure out. How using up a 'blue' can stop the green stream that powers the machine. I think it's something that can be put in the beam to stop it, or suck it up, maybe. I was thinking materia."

"No way," a muffled voice came up behind them and pulled up a stool. Yuffie had a grape popsickle in her mouth. "Blue only enhances things. And it doesn't get used up."

"Here's a section that talks more about blue," Tifa said. "What do the brackets mean?"

"It's were we aren't sure of the translation," Seri explained.

"Well it says blue is light, and either 'smoothing' or 'reducing'," Tifa read.

"There you go," Yuffie said, "NOT blue materia. It increases, not decreases things. Stokes things up."

"What else is in that section?" Seri asked, leaning over to the sheet in front of Tifa.

"Um, blue is for love and war- that seems kind of contradictory."

"I don't know," said Seri, "I found war really mixed up with love."

Tifa nodded, and her gaze lifted briefly to the front window, where Cloud was just visible, making some special adjustments to the weaponry on his bike, Fenrir. In a way that was true, the worse things got, the more you felt the love you had.

"Red is passion, fire," Seri read.

"Duh," Yuffie said, "Red is always passion. Except Vinnie, he always wears that red cape around but he's as dull as dirt."

Tifa shot Yuffie a mean look.

"Well he is!" Yuffie protested, then went to pouting. Seri and Tifa leaned to look into the kitchen, just visible from the bar. Vincent and Cid had the robotic cat split open and were quietly poking it with small instruments, Vincent looking about as un-fiery as a guy drenched in red could. They went back to their papers.

"Green is regality and ownership, or power," Tifa read. "None of this seems very helpful."

"Cetra verse is always like this," Seri said. "An exercise in subtlety. And patience."

A small motion caught the attention of the women, and they turned to watch the small tabby cat stroll silently into the room. The effect was so real that Seri had an urge to reach down and scratch its furry head. The robotic animal stopped directly under Tifa, and then it looked up. A moment later there was a small whistle escaped the kitchen. Tifa leapt sideways to get her skirt out from above the cat's video receiver eyes just as there was a loud 'OUCH!' from the other room, followed by some profanity.

"CID!" Tifa hollered.

The pilot leaned into view, rubbing a welt on the back of his head. His smile might have been sheepish on another man. "It was Vincent," he protested.

"Oh, _right_," Tifa said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

Vincent came to the door and glared at Cid as he snatched the cat control box from him. Vincent rubbed his thumb across the box's small touchpad, moving the cat around the room, steering by seeing what the cat saw as displayed on the tiny screen. He caused it to jump up onto a table, then it clawed straight up the wall. When it hit the ceiling the little cat finally lost its grip and fell, flipping in the air and landing on its feet in a very cat-like fashion without any assistance from Vincent. Vincent's eyebrows rose in appreciation.

"Cat's ready," he declared.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Two hours later found the strange group gathered in the dirt parking lot behind Seventh Heaven. Barret was handing a set of keys out to Cid that glinted in the bright light of early afternoon.

"Just don't let the kid drive, OK?" Barret said, motioning towards Yuffie with his Gatling gun of an arm.

Yuffie had already crawled into the driver's seat of Barret's truck and groaned at the news. "How am I gonna learn if nobody ever lets me drive?" She complained.

"Some other time," Cid said, not unkindly, to the girl and shooed her into the passenger seat.

"_AND_ I miss out on fighting monsters. How come I have to spend the next twenty four hours with your old-fart self?"

"I toldya, I we gotta a gaiadamn ship ready. I expect we're gonna need one."

"You _expect_, you don't _know..."_

They pulled out of the lot, headed back to Cid's shop via a longer, "safer" road, bickering and swearing pouring out of the windows.

Vincent puffed out his cheeks as he blew out his breath, mildly grateful to have to noisy pair go for awhile. He turned his attention to Cloud, who was trying to stuff the robotic cat into a compartment on his bike. The cat was not cooperating.

"OW!" Cloud said, shaking his hand and then sucking on one of his fingers. "His teeth are sharp! Couldn't you guys turn off the biting behavior?"

"Not without sacrificing all the automatic cat-motion reactions," Vincent said, "And we need those to help him make his way into the reactor."

Cloud struggled for a moment longer before finally securing the cat, whose name turned out to be 'Fluffy'. It ceased moving as soon as it was dark and enclosed, and Cloud was grateful Marlene wasn't there to see him treating her "pet" so. All three kids had been lodged with a neighbor, along with their untrained adult, Erik Snortland. Or so they had thought. Cloud nudged Vincent when he saw Erik joining him, a tell-tale determined look on the young father's face. Cloud withdrew a little, relishing a bit the fact that since Vincent was in charge this time Vincent would have to be the one to deal with troublesome personnel. To his surprise Vincent spoke easily and genially to the young man, turning on a social persona that Cloud had not seen before.

"Erik," Vincent said, stepping close. "You've come to see us off?"

"I'm going with you," Erik said, his lips set into a hard line.

Vincent nodded and paused a moment. "We all agreed this morning. There's no shame in letting those with more experience handle this."

"I know," Erik said. His voice was still firm, but he had to look away from Vincent's intense red gaze. "But I can't..." Erik wetted his lips and then bit down on them both momentarily. "I can't stay behind while that bastard has my Nyssa. I have to help. Please."

Vincent stared at Erik for a moment longer then nodded his head. "You'll ride with us," he said.

Cloud stared at the exchange with mouth slightly agape, bright blue eyes rounded in surprise. Then he saw Vincent turn away and roll his eyes in an exasperated fashion. Cloud smirked a little. This was the Vincent he knew. The other must have been some people-handling Turk training that was lurking in the back of Vincent's brain, because normally Vincent showed little patience and even less kindness towards sentimental or inefficient behavior. Cloud moved close enough so only Vincent's enhanced ears could catch his whisper.

"I can't believe you're letting him come," Cloud said.

Vincent sighed. "Man has a right to fight for his own."

Vincent turned away, leaving Cloud and Tifa to ready themselves on the bike. The two of them would be going in the deepest in order to deploy the cat. Cloud would be driving, Tifa riding shotgun with access to Cloud's blades, an actual shotgun, a baseball bat, and a tennis racket. Their role was to dart in quick and close to the reactor where Odin and Fuhito had holed up, release the cat, then hightail it back to the truck group who had (hopefully) setup a secure operating base within the cat's range, which was less than a mile.

Vincent looked over his truck crew. "Barret, we obviously need you shooting," he said. The big man nodded.

"Can you drive?" Vincent asked Erik.

"I drove a tractor once," Erik said.

Vincent suppressed another eye roll. "You?" he asked Seri.

"During raids I sometimes drove assault vehicles that we captured from ShinRa." Seri said. "They were similar size to this truck, and the cross country terrain was pretty rough. Plus the driver also had to shoot."

"Good," Vincent said, nodding in relief. "You're our driver. That frees me up for other activities, in case we need some... special tactics. Give one of your guns to Erik."

"Everybody works," he said, turning to Erik, "You'll have to shoot."

"I can do that," Erik said, his voice sounding less confident than his words.

"Teach him how to reload," Vincent ordered, and hoisted a box of ammo into the truck.

Seri realized he meant right now, and quick. She grabbed Erik's arm and pulled him over to the hood of the truck. She took from her waistband the handgun Tifa had given her, one of many that the multi-talented barmaid had horded up. The grip was covered in silver tape and the finish was beat to hell, but Tifa had said it shot more or less straight and Seri believed her. She pressed the release button, stiff and gummy with glue from the tape, and the magazine dropped. She set it down on the truck's hood and then grabbed Erik's hand, rotating it until it was palm up on the cool metal of the truck's hood.

"Catch this," she said and racked the slide with the pistol inverted so that the round popped out of the pistol's chamber into Erik's palm. He almost dropped it in surprise. He barely had a chance to open his hand to see what he had caught when Seri snatched it from him and set it on the truck's hood where it rolled about in crazy spiral patterns. Then Seri retrieved the magazine and, using her thumb, quickly pushed out all 16 rounds into Erik's hands until he had to join both hands to hold them all. Seri held the empty magazine up in front of him and took up bullet between thumb and forefinger.

"Push the flat end the bullet down in the front of the opening," she said, demonstrating for him, "Then slide it backwards. It's spring loaded, so you have to push hard." She did another one, at about half speed so he could see it again, and then one at full speed so he might know what was expected.

"Your turn." She held her cupped palms up to accept the pile of ammunition and then watched as Erik loaded the rest, slow and insecure at first, but increasing to reasonable proficiency. Seri remembered that he was a tradesman who among other things repaired boots in Bifröst; his fingers were strong and deft, used to handling items like small nails and stiff, resistant leather. He did quite well until he got to the last round, the sixteenth round. He struggled as his thumb slipped a bit, but managed to stuff it in with a grimace. Seri grimaced with him. For her own gun, a trustworthy and beloved piece she had sold to help pay for school, she once had a plastic collar to help push the bullets down against the magazine spring. The guys used to make fun of it, calling it a "sally loader" in reference to some feminine weakness it represented. But it had been faster, faster than a man without it. But today she and everyone else would have to make due without.

"That last round can be hard, because the magazine is almost full," she said. "I usually skip the last one because if it slows me down too much." She took the magazine and slid its rectangular form into it into the hollow handle of the gun.

"Slap it," she said, "to make sure it seats." She slapped the butt of the magazine hard and it made a rather threatening sounding 'clack!' Then she dropped the magazine again and handed both magazine and empty gun to Erik.

"You try that part," she said.

He did so, slapping the magazine home with the palm of his hand.

"Is it ready to shoot?" Erik asked.

"Not yet," Seri said. "It needs one round up here, in the chamber" she tapped the top of the gun in the middle of the slide. "Remember this one, the one that you caught first? That's where it came from." She held up the one remaining bullet that had been rolling around in on the hood of the truck. She dropped it into his shirt pocket. "We could have loaded it in there separately, but this is quicker. Grab the back of the slide, on these little ridges. Pull back fast and let it go. Don't get your fingers pinched."

He did as she instructed, and the gun made another, even more threatening "che-clack".

"_Now_ it's ready to go," she said. "Don't point it at anything you don't mean to kill."

Erik nodded.

Seri produced another gun that was tucked away in a pocket of her pants, the gun Vincent had given her in the temple from one of the men Chaos had killed. "Our guns take the same ammunition, and they load the same. I may ask you to load for me."

Erik nodded.

"Vincent has one handgun that he may ask you to reload for him while he's busy. It uses a bigger bullet, but otherwise loads in more or less the same way. Its ammunition is in the other box."

Erik nodded a third time.

"Vincent's other gun, that big, weird one? And 'gun-arm man' over there... I have no idea how those reload. They'll have to take care of that themselves."

Erik nodded a fourth time, grateful he didn't have to deal with any more new information.

Seri glanced up and saw Vincent waiting for them, looking a tad impatient. She had been feeling proud that her lesson had had been fast and efficient, so his hard look stung a bit.

"Just no pleasing some people," she muttered to herself as she slid into the driver's seat of the big truck, having to step up onto the running board in order for her butt to reach the seat. She noticed the running board was nearly a foot wide and imagined fighters could stand on the thing, hanging onto the roll bars as the truck careened through a battle zone, shooting in every direction. Or doing things other than shooting. Guns had been the primary tool of the resistance, where they fought against humans, but she had heard that Midgar was full of ethereal, bizarre monsters, against some of which guns did little good. Tifa had confirmed this, thus the baseball bat and swords. The tennis racket was a bit of a mystery. The big guns of Barret and Vincent were apparently special, more monster effective, plus both men carried materia. Cloud had provided it for them, having dug it out of a small wooden chest that was hidden in the garage. The hidey hole consisted of a false wall made by a metal plate that Seri expected no ordinary five men could have moved, but Cloud had plucked it out of the way with ease. The garage itself, technically Tifa's garage, looked to have been entirely taken over by Cloud. He was as happy as a chocobo in a patch of choconip in there, having in typical man-fashion filled the place with tools, miscellaneous parts of machinery, jars of nuts and bolts, and tubes of grease. There was barely enough room for his strange and enormous bike. Seri looked over to the bike as it gave a sudden, throaty roar in response to a kicking motion from Cloud. He and Tifa straddled the mechanical beast, both looking as tough and deadly as the machine sounded. Cloud had given it a name: Fenrir. Never in her life had Seri imagined naming a machine. Or a gun, for that matter, as Vincent had named one of his, the big one.

_**He didn't name it. I did. Cerberus was a three-headed pet I had once, something like a dog.**_

Vincent had just taken the passenger side and glared at Seri suddenly, frowning hard and holding up one accusing finger at her.

"What?" Seri said, "I wasn't talking to him! I thought I was thinking to myself, alone, in my own...private head!"

But she could hear them, all of Vincent's demons, snickering away like so many muted voices from an adjacent hotel room. She wondered again how he lived with it.

Vincent pursed his lips and focused his attention forward. "We'll work on how to control your communication with them later."

Seri frowned, deciding not to think about it as she jammed the truck and gear and lurched the vehicle after the motorcycle. Seri rolled over several large concrete chunks that Tifa was using in lieu of a curb.

"Sorry," she said with one quick look at Vincent, then skidded the tires a bit as she hit the gas to try to keep up with Cloud, who, quite frankly, was driving like a bat out of hell. "Been awhile," she muttered.

Vincent leaned one long arm out of the window and gave the signal to slow down. He knew Cloud would be monitoring his mirrors, no matter how fixated he looked on going _forward._ The bike immediately slowed, and then Vincent gave the OK symbol. The OK had a rather specific use for their group, and it was not used as approval (they used thumb up for that). The OK symbol was used strictly as a statement or inquiry of OKness. If you slipped and whacked your head across the ravine, you would flash an OK to your teammates (if you were OK). Cloud and Tifa were probably confused as to why there was even a question about it so early in their adventure, but Tifa OKed back anyway. Vincent figured it would become clear shortly, because he had turned a keen eye to the ditches on the side of the road.

"Drive down into that ditch and out again," He directed, pointing off to the right. "I want you to get used to feel of the truck."

"OK," Seri said, sounding doubtful but steering directly into the ditch anyway. The truck pitched to the right as one huge front tire then the other dove into the weed choked ditch. Vincent marveled at degree of vegetation so close to old Midgar. Everywhere he looked the planet was reviving, pushing life up through the craggy ruins of human folly, covering it from eye and mind. With both his mind and eye distracted he didn't see the large hole, big enough to swallow both front tires, but Seri was already skirted the edge of it. She cut the wheel and hit the gas to send the truck bouncing back out of the ditch.

"Other side," he casually directed.

This one was steeper, and they sped along down in it or a few seconds before coming out, right over a sizable berm that sent the truck a few feet airborne.

"Whoohoo!" Seri yelled over the engine and road noise beneath him. "This thing is _fun_!"

Vincent smiled a little, biting down on his cheek. He saw Tifa turn and smile at them, hair whipping around her face. Cloud had caught on to the game and took to the next ditch, looking for good practice obstacles for the truck. Vincent motioned towards the bike.

"Got it," Seri said, "follow Cloud."

They ran in and out several more times, Cloud probably also enjoying the easy play in a relatively safe area, and probably scaring the hell out of any onlookers. But soon they came to Edge's outskirts, and both drivers turned more serious, staying on the road as long as they had it. The dead core of Midgar stretched before them, still covered in a thin, evil looking, greenish haze. Skin prickled on Seri's neck at the thought of intentionally driving in there, but Cloud plunged in without visible hesitation.

"Follow Cloud," she whispered to herself. A dusty, decayed smell drifted into the vehicle, and outside the world went silent. She hadn't thought she could hear any outside sounds over the noise of the truck, but apparently there was the sound of the wind, or something, that had been audible but now it was gone. Or maybe it was the sound of something less tangible, the sound of life maybe, that was missing? Seri strained her ears, straining beyond the noise of the truck, seeking normal sound of the world , but they picked up something else instead. A ringing, or more like a high pitched buzzing. The more she listened, the louder it got, until it filled her whole head with that maddening sound, except she was pretty sure it wasn't a sound, it was something in her head. Her chest started to feel tight, and her breath grew short and shallow.

"It's demon song," a calm voice said beside her. "Tune it out."

And quite suddenly the sound was gone, no longer threatening to blot out her existence, except she knew it was still there, somewhere, just lurking at the edge of some mental attention.

"What, I don't hear nuthin'" Barret growled from the seat behind her. Seri glanced in the rear view mirror and saw Barret and Erik exchange confused looks.

"Exactly," Vincent explained. "The intense, buzzing sound of nothing. The demons spinning off of the damaged reactor core, they... dampen or suck up what we think of as the real world, leave this oppressive silence. If you listen to it hard enough you can hear the native sound of their life rhythm. Or anti-life rhythm, whatever it is."

Erik and Barret both turned their heads side to side, listening to the silence. One then the other shook their heads negative.

"I guess you have to be sensitive to demons," Vincent said.

Seri snarled at him a little, hoping to show some pointed teeth, but a quick check with her tongue let her know they were still just her normal teeth. Plus Vincent wasn't even paying attention to her; he was busy scanning the area with intense concentration in his red eyes, his eyebrows deeply knitted.

"Here they come," he said.

In front of them they saw Tifa actually _stand up_ on the back of the bike, bracing one shin against Cloud's back and grabbing one of her weapons. Something thudded against the side of the truck.

"Wingnuts," Barret said, and it took Seri a moment to understand it was not some sort of girly curse word, but the name for these things. The closest thing Seri could come to understanding them was they looked something like fat bats. Multicolored, fat bats. With extra legs.

"Shooters out," Vincent ordered, "keep them off of Cloud and Tifa."

Vincent and Barret both opened their doors and half stepped out onto the big running boards, and after a moment of hesitation Erik imitated him. The doors flipped all the way open where they latched magnetically to the body of the truck to stay out of the way. Seri rolled down her window and readied her weapon, but as Cloud did not slow in the least she had her hands full just driving the truck over the increasingly degraded road. Within seconds the air was thick with bright, shimmering color. And gunfire. Behind her Barret was spraying the air, his arm-weapon spitting bullets not with the mechanical regularity of a machine-gun, but with precisely aimed singles mixed with short bursts. Vincent was firing with _both_ hands, either his uncanny balance or a bit of his not-so-lifeless cloak keeping him from bouncing off the truck. His human hand held the regular pistol, and the metallic one the big three barreled gun. The smaller weapon fired three or four times to the larger, and when the big gun fired a hole opened up in the swarm where the fatbats disintegrated. Seri thought with small amount of admiration that the gun must be able to carry ammunition loaded with shot, and this was just the situation for it. Within less than a minute Vincent dropped the magazine of the smaller gun so that it fell directly in the back seat behind him.

"Reload, 45!" he demanded.

Erik sat and went to pushing the bullets from the box labeled "45" into the magazine, looking relieved. Seri thought the poor guy probably wasn't hitting anything anyway. She had imagined broad-side-of-a-barn sized monsters, things anybody could hit, but these things were small, and fast. Tifa, on the other hand, was doing about the most amazing thing she had seen anybody do, besides standing on the back of a bike that was racing and jumping around obstacles without falling off, she was swinging the tennis racket of all things at such a high rate that she was literally cleaning air around her and Cloud. It didn't seem to matter if she killed them or just knocked them out, as soon as the fat bats hit the earth they dusted.

_They can't touch the earth_ Seri realized, and imagined creatures who had to life their whole lives without ever touching the ground. Enemies of the planet, of Gaia, because they were wholly unnatural. Demons, little, flying, fat, demons.

_Am I unnatural for what I carry? _She thought, reaching out with heart and mind without realizing it.

_**No. Never think that, child of Maritee. **_

Rather than startling her, the voice of Chaos in her head, sounding clear, deep, and ancient, had a calming and clearing effect. The world around her opened and the road they were on seemed easier to navigate as the reduction of stress freed up more of her brain. Seri raised her gun with her left hand, her dominant hand, it was one of the reasons she had been chosen as driver, because the window was on her strong side. And she was a pretty good shot, or at least she had been. After firing four times and seeming to hit nothing she swore softly.

"They have shield!," Vincent hollered, apparently noticing her (and Erik's) lack of success. "It's short term, but comes on if they feel you shooting. Try to shoot more... mindlessly!"

Seri knew immediately what he was talking about, because she had once shot a First Class SOLDIER. Normal SOLDIERs could be shot, and if you shot them enough times you could kill one, but First Class, the ones in the black uniform, were different. It was said they could feel the bullet coming, before you fired. And then they would _move_, so fast the bullet missed them. It was that precognitive ability the group had talked about after breakfast. But if you made your mind blank, didn't think about your shot at all, you might hit one. And she had. The bullet hadn't hurt him of course, not much at least, those guys were almost indestructible, but she had hit him. And that's how she had been captured. In a split second, too fast to see even him coming, the guy had moved 100 feet and grabbed her.

Seri made her mind blank to her gun, concentrated only on the driving, and fired at a target that was a mere suggestion out of the corner of her eye. The thing dropped out of the sky. She did a second then a third this way, and her mind was starting to feel light and disconnected. The world narrowed and clarified, the truck moved nimbly as if it were under her direct mind control and she could see in her mind's eye any number of targets to hit next. She was slipping into a battle state that felt both alert and relaxed, and a bit euphoric. Until she screamed.

One of the fat bats had swooped in and landed on Seri's left arm. Up close the thing was more hideous than she would have guessed. What looked like twenty black, shiny eyes were clustered on the front of its squashed, hairy head, and under those eyes hundreds of bright white, needle-like teeth jutted out in crazy angles. Tiny claws on its many legs pinched her arm as the horrible mouth clamped onto flesh. She jerked the wheel before pulling the truck back under control, her brain struggling between two deadly threats. Part of her mind clamored for her to hang on to the gun, but the flaming pain in her arm quickly turned to a spreading numbness and her slack fingers let the thing go where it clattered down somewhere between the door and her seat. A huge black hand came forward and hit the thing hard, and Seri clenched her jaw as the long, narrow teeth ripped and tore, some of them breaking off and sticking into her flesh.

"Keep driving!" Vincent snarled, now leaning over her, one hand assisting with the steering. He grabbed her sleeve at the shoulder with his metallic claw and ripped the whole thing free, scraping her skin as she went. But she couldn't feel the new claw marks, numbness in her arm had spread that far. She couldn't feel the cluster of needle-like teeth still stuck into her arm, nor anything from the colorful hues, reminiscent of the fat bat that had bitten her, that were spreading fast from the bite. Something in her memory piped up that if a poison like that made it to the heart her heart would stop. A hard, small vial was shoved at her mouth, bruising part of her upper lip against her teeth.

"Drink," Vincent commanded, and Seri swallowed the thick, metallic tasting fluid. She gasped, breathing some of it in, then coughed tiny droplets of bright yellow onto the windshield. Her eyes watered so much that Cloud and Tifa became a moving blur, but still she drove on, keeping up, praying that she would not wreck the truck and kill them all. Soon her eyes had cleared she chanced a look at her now bare arm. Somebody had plucked out the little white teeth, and the color was almost normal. And she could feel it again. Somebody had also, Vincent she supposed, rolled up her window. No more shooting for her. Despite the close call she felt disappointed. But the fight seemed to be winding down. Tifa had sat back down for not having enough fat bats to swing at, and the shooters from the truck were firing only sporadically. The swarm was gone.

They travelled forward another two miles, the road now only identifiable by the flanking of half-crumbled buildings on either side of them, and the truck picked its way through the broken rubble. They slowed even further, looking for the crossroads where they would split up. This was an area that even Cloud had never been, at least not since the city had fallen, and Seri could feel that high pitched buzzing pressing even harder at the edge of her mind. She glanced over at Vincent to suck some reassurance from what she knew would be his perpetual calm and focus. Then his eyes widened slightly, and lips parted as he stared at something that surprised him. Seri followed his gaze and soon they were all staring, not at a demon or a hideous beast or some particularly grand destruction, but at a tree. It was no sapling, but a full grown, wide crowned, thriving tree. It was an ordinary thing anywhere else, but wholly unexpected in this dead place. Ahead of them Cloud had slowed to a crawl as he and Tifa both stared at the tree, the growling of the bike engine loud in the comparative silence.

"I'll be damned," Barret croaked.

"How can that be here?" Seri said, barely over a whisper, "Did it survive the destruction?"

"It's from the Planet," Erik said, "It's a sign, to help us."

"Fuck the Planet," Vincent said, with a quiet hostility that distracted the other three. "Stay focused. We head to the left."

Seri veered left as Vincent directed, feeling a small pang of anxiety as Cloud and Tifa separated from them and took a path to the right. Vincent's comment had disturbed her; he never struck her as a planet hater, or doubter of its involvement and power. In fact he had been particularly brusque and closed ever since the kitchen table planning meeting of that morning. Not one his wry comments, or the cracks of dry humor she had learned to expect from him.

_Probably just his game face, _she thought, for this was serious business, after all. She dismissed her misgivings, but left an aftertaste that pestered at the edge of her mind, that something was not quite right.

"There," Vincent's flat, down to business voice called out. "Hydes Park. That's our defensible spot to make camp."

Seri aimed the truck towards a spot noticeably clear of half fallen buildings. "Were there really parks in Midg- Shit!"

Seri braked hard at the crest of the rubble hill she had been climbing. The clear area below them writhed and moved with long, slick, tubular bodies, all several feet thick.

"Zolom nest!" Vincent hissed.

Erik leaned out his window, mouth agape. A foul odor, moist and bitter, hit him full in the face. "That's a nest? Those are... babies? Where's the-"

He never finished his statement because something hit the side of the truck, sending them into a roll. Seri hung onto the wheel, grateful for the lap belt but even so couldn't stop her shoulder slamming into the steering wheel and then her head to the sidewall. For a few seconds the slamming and jolting of their bodies were all the truck's occupants could worry about until the rolling abruptly stopped. The truck was partly on its left side, and they had rolled down into the nest. A huge snake belly slid over the windshield in front of Seri, and her side window, gratefully closed, was pressed solid with them.

Erik wasn't so lucky. Not only had he not been strapped down during the roll and was bleeding from his head and lower lip, but one baby zolom jutted its head down through his open window. Its baby fangs were three inches long, splayed open by a double hinged jaw as it hissed at Erik. Before Barret could even yell for him to get out of the way Erik had grabbed the nearest thing he could, an ammo box that he was pretty sure had hit him in the face the during the roll, and slammed the thing down atop the long, reptilian head. Globs of blackish goo sprang from the impact area as Erik hit it two more times, screaming in a feral battle cry until the little zolom retreated. Bleeding, half covered in dark oily zolom blood, and panting, Erik stared blankly at his two companions. Then all three looked up at a loud booming overhead. It was then that Seri finally realized that Vincent wasn't in the truck with them. He must have bailed before the big Zolom hit it.

_Precog_ Seri thought, with both annoyance and relief. At least one of them was outside of the truck.

"Excuse me," Barret said, clambering up over Erik. He couldn't get any of his huge frame out the small window, so he shoved at the door. It moved, but wedged in the frame. Erik climbed into the front seat to get out of the way as Barret coiled and slammed his shoulder upward and the door blew open. He stuck his torso out and immediately started firing. Seri craned around, trying to get a look outside through the angled windshield. The baby snakes were agitated and moving rapidly, unfocused and panicked. A large gray body, at least ten feet in diameter, swung in front of her view and a red flash went by through the air, twenty feet up, on level with the thing's head. The booming was continuous, a chest compressing noise far louder than when Vincent had been firing in the truck. Barret was firing rapidly, and Erik and Seri moved their heads right and left, watching mesmerized as a thick blackish band started to form across the big Zolom's body right below the head. The band started to ooze black, and then a kink developed as the band opened up. The head jerked and snapped at the red winged attacker that acrobatically jerked out of the way as he fired again. The zolom swayed, spasmed, and then fell away from the truck. Barret tumbled back in and slammed the door.

"Drive," he said.

Seri was about to say that you can't drive a truck that's on its side in a snake pit when a field of red covered the windshield and the truck jerked towards right. With shaking hands she pushed the transmission to neutral and turned the ignition, heard it catch immediately, and silently thanked Cid. When the truck jerked upwards again it was almost level and she put it in gear and hit little gas. The wheels spun at first, as if she were on mud, but when she backed off accelerator the truck crawled up and down, sliding sideways in an unnerving way.

"Good Gaia, I'm driving over snakes," Seri said.

A light thump sounded on the roof and they all caught their breath, but then a face appeared hanging upside down by the driver's window. Shocking yellow eyes that were lit from the inside scanned the passengers as wild and pointed strips of red velvet moved like locks of hair about the face, a face broader and heavier than Vincent's but just as porcelain smooth. One corner of classically sculpted lips, Vincent's lips, tipped up in a mischievous and distinctly non-Vincent way before disappearing above.

"I can't see," Seri said, projecting her thoughts along with her voice, "how do I get out of here?"

"_**Turn a bit more left" **_

Seri did so, recognizing Chaos' voice but hearing Vincent as well. She actually couldn't be sure if she heard that in her ears or her head, and she wondered how blended demon and man were while in this state. She got the tires up onto a piece of dirt and they stopped that slippery feeling. Soon the truck had made it out of pit and on to the safe feeling rubble. The Vincent/Chaos voice/thought directed her around to a relatively clear area alongside a large wall, a leftover side of a building that was leaning in such a way that it looked likely to fall away from them rather than on them. When they stepped out of the truck Vincent had returned to himself, and was examining their new camp.

"Will Cloud find us here?" Seri asked, "I mean, we were not in the agreed upon location."

"He'll find us," Vincent said. "This is the closest, next most logical spot."

Barret grumbled as he got out of the truck. "Next time we make Cid get us some radios."

"He'll find us," Vincent repeated. "And we we'll have an easier time of it now, this is a clear zone because zolom eat everything in vicinity of their nest. And we killed the big one."

"What about the babies?" Erik asked, looking still traumatized from his last brush with a 'baby'. "Won't they come and try to eat us?"

Vincent shook his head. "They'll be full for awhile."

"Ew," Seri said. "Here I was starting to feel a little bad for them, having killed their mother. Little cannibals."

Barret snorted and even Vincent looked a little amused.

"They're just being efficient. They are beast level demons, that's all."

Galian gave a little agitated growl inside Vincent. He never under everything that was said, but he knew the word 'beast' as it was applied to himself, and he understood condescending tones when he heard them.

_Not like you, Galian. _Vincent said in his head, then wondered if that were true or not, if the Galian Beast, although more intelligent than a standard beast demon, would eat his mother if it were convenient.

_**That's right. He's more of a pet. You're a pet, Galian. A pretty little pet...**_

A small ruckus ensued somewhere inside Vincent as Galian correctly understood Chaos' tone if not his words. Vincent did his best to tune it out and hoped it didn't show. He pulled Fluffy's control box from a pocket and turned it on, waiting to see the cat deployed.

**A/N: Some notes on guns, as this was a gun heavy chapter. I committed a gun aficionado sin by using the word "bullet" to refer to entire round of ammunition. I hope I will be forgiven (technically the bullet is just the heavy part that flies out of the gun and does not include the cartridge with powder and all that). Lay people commonly use the term bullet in this way so I decided to do so as well, reasoning that a term that is used and understood is valid for communication even if not at technically correct. I was rather more concerned that using the word "round" would be not understood. I also gave Vincent a caliber that is used in our world, hoping that "45" is recognizable as "a big bullet". It's always weird for me to have to pick and choose what bits of our world should exist in this world and what should be different.**

**My cousin tells a story of how he went up into the attic of a house he had just bought and found it full of bats, like a swarm of bats (that's actually what they are called en masse, a swarm rather than flock or herd or whatever). He grabbed a tennis racket and started swinging and found it a marvelously effective weapon. Later he was vilified by the bat lovers because bats are a protected animal, and told he was an idiot by others for even going up into his attic because bat guano has deadly mold it in. I like bats, as long as they are outside, but frankly have trouble sympathizing with an animal after it infests your home with deadly, moldy, feces.**


	16. Betrayal

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy or anything in it.

Seri looked around at their bleak environment, and then up at the hazy blue-green sky. They had checked every nook and craggy corner around them to be sure there weren't any monsters lurking around that the zolom had forgotten to eat, and the area seemed safe if unpleasant. There wasn't a chunk of concrete anywhere that was smooth enough or level enough to sit comfortably on- their camp was all raggedness and twisted rebar. Seri kicked a small colored bit of something with her boot and wondered what it had belonged to- a floor or a wall that had been a solid and safe part of someone's environment? A piece of furniture? Two million had lived and worked on the plates that made up the center of the city, not to mention affected outlying areas. At the moment she couldn't remember how many in total had been killed, even though at the time of the catastrophe everyone knew that factoid. The most obscure detail of the disaster had been on the tip of the tongue of the entire planet, but now, barely a year had passed, and she couldn't remember the number dead. She supposed she had repressed it somehow in her need to get on with life. Her shoulders gave a stiff, involuntary shudder.

"Not bad, for your first time driving that truck," Vincent said, breaking her morose train of thought.

Seri gave him an annoyed glance. Not bad? She had done freaking awesome! She had driven over snakes and been bitten by a fat, spidery bat. Then again, 'not bad' out of Vincent Valentine was probably like a medal of honor.

"Thank-you," she said dryly.

"Of course you did roll the thing."

Now Seri stared at him in open hostility. Maybe he was joking, but his voice and face were his self-same flat and serious.

"I was sideswiped by a giant snake!" she protested.

Vincent didn't respond. He had stopped paying attention to Fluffy's still dark monitor and was fixated on an area in the sky. He was so still that she was tempted to give him a little shove, to see if he would fall over like a block of wood. It occurred to her that maybe he was looking for another attack, maybe another swarm of the fat bats, or, Gaia help them, a dragon or something. She scrutinized the same patch of sky but couldn't see anything, and Vincent wasn't scanning to and fro, he was just... staring. .

"Something on your mind, Vincent?" she finally asked.

Vincent only gave the tiniest, absent shake of his head in response. The gesture and his continued distracted state convinced her something certainly was on his mind, taking up all of his brain in fact. She tried to feel his demons, just a little, to try and sneak a general impression. She was becoming quite good at this sort of non-specific feeling of their state, even if she couldn't sort out which one was contributing which portion of the emotional content. The feeling she got was the same as Vincent was giving off, detachment, concentration. Maybe Vincent was engaged with them in some way.

"Just leave him be," a deep voice gruffed from behind her. Barret had fished half a cigar from a pocket and clamped it between his jaws. Further rummaging failed to produce a match and he resorted to touching an orb lodged in his gun arm that created a flame ball the size of pumpkin in front of his face. He leaned back to avoid singing off is eyebrows but did manage to get the smelly stub of a cigar lit. He continued to talk as though this was his normal method and he hadn't almost lit his head on fire.

"Vince is just this way. Can't hardly talk to the guy. Hey Vince! How about you quit being such anti-social jackass?"

Vincent made no reply, merely lifted his metallic gold hand with the middle finger raised behind him toward Barret. Barret grinned broadly and Seri laughed as she abandoned Vincent for the favor of sunnier company.

"Forget him," Barret advised. "You did fantastic out there!"

He punched her lightly on the shoulder with one meaty fist, the barest touch of which almost toppled her off her feet. Luckily Erik managed to catch her on the other side.

"Yeah!" Erik agreed. "You were awesome! I didn't even know women could drive. I mean..." Erik stuttered, afraid he'd offended, "I never saw a woman drive before."

Seri nodded; she had noticed they barely had any vehicles in Bifröst and the few that were there were driven by men.

"Where I come from it's the woman's job to drive the tractors and trucks," Seri said. "The men do the heavier lifting on the ground. It's a big deal when the Mariteen daughter can drive and help. Sort of a right of passage."

"Huh," Barret mused, "Maritee is really close to Wutai. Is it the same there?"

"I would guess so; the cultures are pretty close in many ways."

"Maybe that's why Yuffie always wants to drive. Maybe I should let her."

Seri nodded. "She probably feels pretty weird to be a girl that old if she hasn't learned yet. I know I would."

Barret chewed on his cigar and rolled it around in his molars, no doubt weighing the desire to be a good, supportive friend versus potential fender damage. The group fell silent for several minutes, each wondering with increasing anxiety if something had happened to Cloud and Tifa.

"The cat is... out of the bag, as it were." Vincent came over to their group and held the small box so they could all see the display. He moved the cat with the touch pads, the display zipping by full of floor and twisted metal.

"Must be weird being a cat," Erik said, tilting his head to the side. "Everything is so close to the ground."

Vincent grunted and moved the view upward. That helped. He had been having trouble identifying what few landmarks still existed and it hadn't occurred to him that the cat's viewpoint was part of the problem. Now the cat would be running along with nose in the air, but he supposed it would have to do. He could now identify where he was – the Materials Receiving entrance on the facility's west side. That used to be about a five minute walk to the core. The cat trotted along, easily leaping and jumping over obstacles as the way was well lit by the mostly missing roof. But when he took what was left of the west stair down to the core level there were times the screen went completely dark. The amazing little cat managed to continue on in the same direction, picking its way through by feel, until some cracks would appear again to let some light through.

Eventually he came to the big double doors with a bit of the "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" sign still visible. The doors were a twisted jumble, and when he aimed the cat at a small hole in the upper left the little robot jumped and scrambled through. There was more light here and he crept forward, the cat's view swinging side to side as the area opened up into the reactor core. He glimpsed a green glow on and followed it, until around a sharp and rusty metal cabinet he saw the beam. All three humans stared at the visage on the tiny screen, effectively causing the cat to stare as well.

The hypnotic effect of the shifting green column was broken by the sound of Cloud's motorcycle approaching. The engine sound slowed in the direction of their original rendezvous point now turned snake pit, then came slowly towards them. Cloud cut the engine and he and Tifa crawled off, both spattered with some sort of bright pink goo.

"Sorry," Cloud said, "we ran into... actually I don't know what that thing was. Looks like you guys found some zolom."

Cloud said this casually, not looking for a response, just small talk for his everyday life- giant snakes and fat bats and unknown things that exploded pink goo. He crowded his pink-streaked blond head into their group to see the viewscreen. Seri looked at his head, smelling a sickly sweet odor from his new, fibrous, pink decoration. It was like Cloud had been attacked by the cotton candy monster. He gave her a quick, nervous glance, and bits of him started to fidget around, as if he itched.

"We just entered the core area," Vincent said. "You released the cat in a good spot."

Vincent edged the cat forward, closer to the beam, and then they saw motion in a shadow off on the very left edge of the screen. Vincent pushed the button for "stalk" mode and moved the cat closer. The active beam washed the room in a shifting, watery green glow, and in a protected nook near the beam two figures were visible, one large and the other smaller. The larger figure was seated on a dented and charred equipment rack as the smaller paced near him, gesturing and speaking. Vincent dialed up the volume on the controller. Fuhito's voice came through, small and thin on the tiny speaker.

"But you have to admit the possibility of time paradox."

Fuhito stopped to hold what looked like a small flask near a space in the wall for a few moments, then took a swallow from it. Vincent realized he was drinking something dripping from the wall- maybe from an old pipe or maybe rainwater that slowly trickled into the broken building. It would be full of bad mako and who knew what else, normally toxic to a human, but he had seen the glow in Fuhito's eyes. He was already swimming in the green stuff.

"When you back up time," Fuhito continued, "but preserve your own sense of self and memory-"

"As you claim your fancy box will do for us here, or the aura of the machine would have," Odin said, his voice a harder to hear, low rumble.

"Yes, you would know enough to correct the events that caused you to use the time machine in the first place. And so these events would not occur, and thereby logically unwinding the entire sequence."

"I suppose so. But as I have said, I was assured this was not a problem."

Fuhito waved an arm more emphatically. "Yes, yes, by your...engineer who built the machine. But by what manner is this avoided? According to the theory of time strapping? Or the multiple path method?"

"Why must you know the how and why of everything?"

There was a pause and Fuhito adjusted his glasses. "Knowledge is power," he said simply.

"Power is power," Odin countered.

"Granted... you have some very unique and useful skills. But how can you be sure the one who knows more about your technology than you do won't use it against you?"

"Simple. I killed her after she made the machine."

Fuhito threw up his hands and there was a small, dissatisfied growl from inside Vincent.

_**Kiesha. I suspected as much. I liked her.**_

_Has there ever been a female you didn't like?_

Vincent expected no answer and received none. "Good?" he asked.

"Yup," Cloud said, "Let's see the other side".

Vincent drove the cat around the green beam, away from Odin and Fuhito. This side of the room was in worse condition, and the cat had to pick its way carefully. It came nearly full circle before finding something of interest.

"Stop!" Erik said, but Vincent had already paused the cat. A figure lay on the ground, mostly obscured by shadow. Vincent edged the cat closer.

"Is she... alive?" Erik asked, his voice cracking with emotion.

The woman's eyes fluttered open and her head rose up a few inches. Without a command from the controller the cat padded forward and touched its nose to the young woman's.

"Shit," Vincent hissed, working to override this unexpected auto-cat function, but it seemed it needed to run to completion before he had control again.

Erik's wife reached forward weakly and touched the cat's head. Her lips, dry and pale, mouthed a few words that might have been "hi kitty", but no sound came from them.

"Is she sick?" Tifa whispered, forgetting momentarily they couldn't be heard.

"She was sick when they took her," Erik whispered back, choking on his own breath. "But she's alive. Gods, she's alive."

"We have to get her out of there," Cloud said. "The environment's completely polluted."

Vincent nodded as he backed the cat away, grateful to see Odin and Fuhito still engaged in their argument and the cat otherwise unnoticed. He navigated the cat back out the way it came.

"Are we done?" Seri asked, looking from one to the next, finding Erik the only other questioning face.

"No other clear door in or out of there," Tifa said, "and the way we came is nearly impassable. We can't launch an attack through that. They must have come in from the larger of the two openings in the ceiling. We should too."

"They've got an energy adjuster that it looks operational next to them," Barret said. "They're probably using just that one to keep the beam conditioned. They'll be keeping a close eye on that thing, staying close to it."

"And the upper hatch to the chamber looks like it might still be functional; we might be able to use it as a shutter for the beam," Cloud added.

Vincent nodded. "We might be able to bring enough to the structure down to block the beam with a few well placed explosives."

"Oh," Seri said, realizing why the recon was over. They had all seen much more than she had. "I guess I was only paying attention to the people. And the argument between Fuhito and Odin."

"Sounds like they are getting on each other's nerves," Barret said. "Just the two of them? No other cohorts around somewhere to worry about?"

"Fuhito had some people with him, originally," Vincent said. "They... expired. The box they referred to may have been the work of another scientist who had been with Fuhito, a man named Temen."

Barret squinted thoughtfully. "Odd name. What did he look like?"

"Tall, lanky, sandy brown hair, hooked nose, left eye set a little lower than right. Oddly long fingers."

"Damn if that doesn't sound like Temen Connor," Barret said. "He was an egghead working at the oil company who disappeared a few months ago. They said he downloaded all kind of data on oil field surveys before he left; maybe to sell to a competitor or something."

"Ahhh," Vincent said, finally understanding a piece of the puzzle that had been eluding him. "I doubted Fuhito's new world order was going to consist of primitive villages scratching out a living on goat farming. He means to use oil, make himself an oil empire. He would become ShinRa."

"Well, at least oil energy is safe," Barret said, always eager to put in a plug for his employer, "no damaging the Lifestream."

Vincent gave a small, pessimistic snort. Burning oil maybe didn't harm the Lifstream, but anything with fumes that offended his nose to that degree must have something wrong with it.

"Cloud, do you want to retrieve the cat?" Vincent asked, looking off to the west and noticing some clouds rising as the wind picked up.

"I better, or I'll wind up with pancake batter in my bed or something." Cloud too looked towards the oncoming weather. "It'll be quick."

"Please return back to this location and accompany the truck back to Seventh Heaven. I'll join you there shortly." And before anyone could question his statement Vincent launched into the air, red wings sprouting out either side of him to support his ascent.

"Vincent! Where-" Seri called, but it was clear if he heard her he had no intention of responding.

"Where is he going?" She asked Cloud.

But Cloud was as mystified as all of them, and merely shook his head. Seri squinted into the sky where the form of Chaos was growing smaller, heading up and towards the barely visible green light beam.

"I think he's going back into the temple," Seri said.

"Back to the machine?" Tifa asked. "Maybe there's a way to disable it from there."

Seri started to say that they had already thought of that, that Chaos had told them there was no way to safely cut the beam from there. But she kept her mouth shut, and it occurred to her there were a number of things Vincent had not revealed to his team that she had excused in one way or another. Most of it involving Chaos, and she had been respecting his desire to keep that private. And her own demon connection, slight though it was, to the race of Odin- she had appreciated his silence on that. True, there hadn't been much time to tell every detail of what happened in the last few days, but now his behavior was looking like a disturbing pattern.

"He shouldn't have gone alone," Seri said.

"Well, he's never really alone, is he?" Cloud said.

Seri watched Vincent, flying in the form of Chaos, disquiet settling in on her like a vulture as his form entered the invisible pyramid and winked out of view.

ccccccccccccccccccccc

_Let's do this quick,_ Vincent commanded. Even his trained and cool nerves sizzled a little with the knowledge of what he was doing. He pushed the word _betrayer _away, into the back of his mind. Likewise _traitor, apostate, liar, deceiver, miscreant, snake _and briefly cursed his good vocabulary. But his heightened state of anxiety kept his demons attentive, or maybe it was that they were entertained, but at any rate they were ready to follow direction. Standing in the threshold of the old temple he pulled up the Galian Beast and commanded Death Gigas to relay the directions backwards through the maze. Then he ran Galian at full speed with clawed feet slipping and skidding around corners on the stone floor. It was barely fast enough to keep up with Gigas' excited directions and mentally a tricky bit of demon coordination.

**wrr srie?**

_She's busy, _Vincent answered, understanding Galian even if his language was malformed and limited. _We'll see her later._

Galian snorted and tossed his head, and Vincent pushed forward to keep going. At this pace it wasn't long before they reached the colorful door. He paused only momentarily to wait for the door to turn blue and leapt through. Immediately he felt that same Asgard effect even before he perceived the cold. He had increased in vigor and physical size and spurred his beast-self forward at a full run now that he had the open ground to do so. This trip didn't need Gigas' direction; the path was an ordinary one, easy enough to navigate without the idiot savant's help. They ran straight into the Hall of Odin and into the machine's room. Vincent put himself back to rights and walked around the machine.

_**What are you doing, Valentine? I told you the machine cannot be safely stopped from here. **_

_Perhaps I can change the degree of its function. Where are the controls?_

_**I didn't build the thing. But it's possible it has none. Odin is less than bright and it was perhaps designed for one purpose and setting only..**_

_What it were triggered before the askel is full? _Vincent eyed the twisted, glassy object, noticing it was now over half full of gold.

_**Askels only dump their power when full. **_

_Into what?_

Vincent felt his body pushed forward off to the left and he went with it. He stopped in front of some sort of pot with the same, flowing, glassy look as everything else in the room. He looked from it to the askel, and at the empty four feet or so of space between them. He had been thinking maybe he could adjust the flow from one to the other, but he could see no pipe or path for it. Then he squinted, and tilted his head. He could actually see... something. A waver in the air, like looking through a superheated layer. Or maybe it was the lack of air, but there was definitely something there.

_**Don't touch**_ Chaos said inside his head, a mocking tone to the internal voice.

Vincent grunted slightly. _As if_ he was some overly curious Mariteean college student. His thought flitted briefly to wondering if Seri would make it back to Seventh Heaven alright, then reminded himself that Cloud would take care of things. Not that he liked the feeling of someone else taking up the slack for him. That was just... unmanly. The word "cowardly" raised it's ugly head and he pushed it down with the others.

_What's this?_ Vincent mentally directed the attention to a wheel flat against the floor, centered under the vessel. Chaos didn't answer, and Vincent could feel he didn't know. But somebody else spoke up.

**«sαώ ßεƒorε. movεd ηoώ. »**

Vincent quickly did something he hoped was as effective as it felt. He shut out communication to all demons but Gigas. The other's didn't like it, he could feel them pushing inward and knew his strength to keep up this barrier was limited, but as far as could feel the other three were shut out.

_What moved, Gigas?_

**«shiηy linε, oηε ρoiητ six dεgrεεs. sτill moviηg. »**

Vincent looked to where the demon's attention was, and saw the faintest, shimmering line on the disk. He too could perceive the line moving, ever so slightly, against the background. He realized the disk was a dial of some kind, but where in the human world he expected some sort of grid or hash marks, the background of this dial was instead speckled.

_Is it moving faster today? It will accumulate much more than one point six degrees of movement in a day at this rate._

Death Gigas cackled at Vincent, happy to be the "smarter" one for once, and not sounding like he wanted to share.

_C'mon, Gigas, it can be our little secret. The other three won't know. Chaos won't know._

That loosened the demon up some. Vincent had a vague feeling that in the landscape where his demons lived he was more of a minor player; Chaos was the true lord and tyrant.

**«iτ's lαgrizmic. disc comρrεssiηg»**

Vincent studied the disk again, amazed that these savant skills of Gigas' extended to detecting logarithmic functions. The speckled pattern was in fact shifting ever so slightly, just as Gigas had said, compressing as it moved away from the small line. The demon had been able correlate the small current motion to the small angular move from yesterday and discover its logarithmic nature. Such a scale along the dial would allow it to cover a huge span of time but still allow precision for small values. The only reason to construct such a thing would be for adjustment. Vincent looked to the other side of the "dial", and two thirds around found a bar. It looked like it might be movable.

_Can you use the amount of motion since yesterday to determine how far this bar is away from today? _

A little proud surge filled him that Vincent was beginning to find familiar.

**«ßαr is εqμαl ƒoμr τhoμsαηd, ηinε hμηdrεd ƒiƒτy τώo yεαrs. »**

Vincent's heart rate picked up a little. Almost five thousand years; that was early cetra, or maybe pre-cetra time. The bar was the target marker for the machine to back up time. He reached forward and gingerly touched the bar, and was happy not to be blown to bits. He pushed the bar a little, then a little harder and it groaned free. He moved it towards the line of light, the "current time" marker. He tried to push it past this "now" line, into the future, but it stuck solid and refused to go beyond. Instead the bar locked in and tracked along with the current time. He realized he could leave it there, and when the machine kicked off it would essentially do nothing. For a long minute he stared at the dial.

_Gigas, help me set the bar to... thirty-five years ago._

**A/N: That machine adjustment was a tricky bit. I didn't want it to have a digital display, so without an instruction manual somebody had to compare a distance or angle or _something _on the machine associated with a known time to allow a calibration of the thing, so Vincent could set it to the time he wanted. But only a day had elapsed since they were last there, and the setting of thousands of years is like over a million days. A mark that moved a couple of millimeters in a day would have a marker kilometers away to represent four thousand years if using a linear scale. Hence the logrithmic scale. (Or some other exponential based scale, we don't know that Odin's people used base ten, but I rather liked Gigas trying to say "lagrizmic"). **


	17. Down Time

**Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or any of the characters. I just make them do silly stuff. And I take liberties with Vincent's past. And Cloud in general.  
**

**A/N: I goofed - I needed a rainstorm to be brewing at the end of last chapter but forgot to include it. I went back and added it, but if you missed it, well, there's a rainstorm.**

Vincent ran Galian back through the temple toward the exit, barely needing to involve himself in the process as both Gigas and Galian were becoming adept at the joint routine of directing and running. It left his mind free to wander, normally an unfortunate state for him but even more so at the moment. His conscience pestered him over what he had done and he felt something nasty deep down in the pit of his stomach where he imagined a bolus of black, poisonous bile festered. It was a familiar feeling – as a Turk he had used it as a type of talisman, something to keep him alert and sharp, to rein in his emotions and clear his head for the mission. How proud he had been back then of his lethal efficiency, his finely honed skilled. What a massive idiot he had been as well.

_A chance to correct_ he thought to himself. _To atone. _There was, after all, no other way to atone for what was done and gone. This was an opportunity, unique and powerful.

A yelling, snarling, ruckus interrupted Vincent's thoughts and caused him to direct his attention back outwards, to where Galian was sliding and skidding across the floor of the main foyer. He was headed out the door, but instead he body slammed full into it.

_Graceful _Vincent commented as he reduced himself to his own human body, wincing at a new pain in his shoulder. He ignored Galian's growling at him and studied the closed door. He was certain he had left it open.

"Probably the wind," he said softly to himself as he pulled the catch.

The next event caught Vincent wholly unprepared. The heavy door jerked open, pulling him off his feet, and the gust of air that followed sucked him clean out of the doorway. In a wild fury of wind and rain Chaos surged forward to take form even before Vincent thought to command it, and the large red wings strained from his back as they struggled to regain position and altitude. Chaos was a strong flyer, but pushing against air was always far less fruitful than pushing against solid ground. It was worse if that air you were trying to push on was itself moving. There was a tremendous boom, less sharp than the thunder around them, followed by a mechanical, ratcheting noise. With a final effort they gained enough altitude to see the door again; it had blown shut and the locking mechanism had latched into place.

_Well,_ Vincent thought, _now it's done. No going back in there to undo it, unless Erik still has his key. _Vincent didn't think he did; the guy had returned from wherever he'd been with clothes barely attached, torn and a bit ragged at that.

Vincent directed them towards home, Chaos choosing to nosedive down to a lower, less windy altitude, and skimmed the ragged bones of Midgar towards Edge.

cccccccccccccccc

"Have fun?" Cloud didn't look up from a concoction he was mixing of wheat germ, spouts, and tofu.

"Yes," Vincent said flatly, water dripping off his cloak and flattened hair onto the kitchen floor.

Cloud sighed; he had forgotten that Vincent wasn't a guy you could goad with smart aleck comments. He resorted to bluntness.

"Where did you go? Did you go back up through the temple to the machine?"

"Yes."

"And?" Cloud felt like giving Vincent a good shake, except he was afraid it would douse the whole kitchen the way a wet dog might. "Did you manage to disable it?"

"No." Vincent found himself a mug and poured some welcome fresh coffee from the coffee maker.

"Well… OK then," Cloud said, feeling a little like he was talking to himself. "I guess we're still on. Cid called and said he'd have a ship ready by tomorrow morning. We'll need it; you and I could scale the outside of the reactor structure and drop down in there, but with the number of variables we need to contend with, not to mention Odin… well, crap, I think we better have the whole team on board."

"That would be best."

Cloud squinted at the back of Vincent's head. He _hated_ when Vincent got like this, with his attention obviously elsewhere.

"Are you even listening?" Cloud said, his frustration winning out.

"Yes." Vincent finally fixed his gaze onto Cloud, red eyes unblinking.

Cloud pursed his lips, then took a swig of his drink which now resembled bug-filled, stagnant sewage. "Barret took Seri out to the south edge of the city to collect some old mako transformers. She said knew how to make bombs out of them."

Now Vincent looked mildly interested, or at least amused. "It's a good rebel skill," he said, although he thought 'terrorist skill' would probably be the more common phrase applied by the victors of that war. "I'll be working on ammo."

Vincent left, leaving Cloud alone in the kitchen. Cloud ran his fingers unconsciously through his blond locks, still damp from the shower. He felt one finger stick and yanked it free. He had showered twice, same as Tifa. First him, then her, then him again… she was still up there, plus they had gotten rained on while on the bike on the way home and they still had gotten all the pink sticky goo off of themselves.

Cccccccc

Vincent exhaled deeply, glad for the return to solitude. He found a towel in the small downstairs bathroom and began to rub the water out of his hair, thinking of the difficulty that the next eighteen or so vacuous hours presented. Normally the pre-battle lull was awful, full of tension and boredom and weird emotional outbursts from those who waited. But this time he had to act as if he wasn't on a different agenda as everyone else. He knew he could maintain the façade, for days or even months or maybe a lifetime if needed, but it was… taxing. The thought occurred to him that he could kill his entire team- that would certainly make things easier. When the machine kicked off it would make it all undone anyway. A carte blanche for every sin. He thought that idea probably held special appeal to a psychopath like Fuhito, and Vincent balked at the idea of sharing anything with Fuhito, who, despite an improved outward appearance, reminded him entirely too much of Hojo. Plus he had been around long enough to know one of life's great truths: the world was unpredictable, any plan could go south in a heartbeat, and machines in particular were unreliable. There was a chance the damn thing wouldn't work at all. He imagined a life where he returned to wandering the planet, knowing he had killed in cold blood everyone in the world who, no matter how misguided and naïve, had trusted him. Mentally he shuddered, though his frame remained still. He would follow his original plan and temporarily incapacitate each of them shortly before the event. If the machine worked, then all of this will have never happened. And if it didn't, they wouldn't have needed to do anything anyway. Cloud and company would surely ban him from their presence, but it was a small risk for what he was shooting for.

_**What are you concentrating on so hard, Valentine?**_

_Nothing_

_**You're plotting something.**_

Vincent could feel Chaos pacing around behind the barrier he had constructed to keep his thoughts private. He had only a vague idea of what his demons could sense from inside him. They would know he was occupied, and also that the body wasn't doing anything of any significance. But he wasn't sure why Chaos should think he was "plotting" (even if he was). How could Chaos know Vincent's brain wasn't involved with something else, say quantum mechanics? Or maybe he was indulging in a romantic fantasy?

_**Serious? **_

_No! _

Vincent clenched his teeth for having his brain barrier slip at just that moment. It was a tricky and tiring activity, and it was best just to get on with normal activities. If he remembered correctly, Tifa stashed old ammo of questionable quality in a box in the hall closet. He found the closet, and found the box to be overflowing with all different types and calibers of ammunition. Edge was still a pretty upside down place where quite a lot of business was done by bartering, and Tifa collected all types of things. Weapons of any kind were especially good for trade. An adjacent box held miscellaneous gun parts and a few larger items that appeared to parts of a small rocket launcher. Vincent scooped up both and headed to find some space for a little alone time.

cccccccccccccccc

Cloud paced the narrow hallway, deciding first to read the Edge News in the kitchen, then to peoplewatch in the bar instead. But it was early Monday evening and business was slow: a couple talking quietly in a corner booth, and two loners, both men, sitting about as far apart as they could from one another at the bar. Jerry, Tifa's part time bartending help, was himself half-snoozing over the newspaper. Cloud sighed, stood up, and paced back to the kitchen. The problem was he had nothing to do. Everyone else was busy; Vincent was holed up with his ammo sorting, Seri and Barret had returned but were now monopolizing the small workbench in the garage making bombs. Erik had taken the kids with Tifa to pick up a few groceries as the sudden load of guests had rather exhausted the cupboards. Cloud has ostensibly been left "in charge" of Seventh Heaven, but there wasn't really anything to take charge of, nothing to absorb these tense hours before tomorrow morning. He leaned over the sink and watched the evening sunlight, shafting through broken storm clouds to glint off wet leaves of thin trees that grew at the edge of the rear parking lot. The world looked clean, and even through the closed window he could smell the post-rain dewiness to the world. It was an optimistic smell.

Cloud heard a step behind him and saw Seri come into the kitchen. She rolled her shoulders and rubbed the small of her back.

"Taking a break?" Cloud asked.

"Yeah. We're nearly done." Seri spotted the fruit bowl on the counter and snagged an apple from it. She took a bite, uncovering a white gash in the dark red skin.

"I think your friend Barret is a workaholic," she said, chewing.

"Yeah, he is kind of." Cloud watched her take another bite and then chew with her tired eyes shut. She was about his age (his real age, plus or minus the five years in the lab, or maybe he should use some sort of mako mediated age... he tried not to think about it.) She also seemed genuinely nice, wore no makeup, not too pretty, not too intimidating. He was even starting to feel some fondness for what he originally thought of as a uniquely bad haircut. And she was fit, nice body, actually. She was just the type Doc Mahler, the Edge resident therapist, said he should use to "work on himself".

Cloud didn't like to think of himself as "in therapy". That was just so... ShinRa. He had just done a bit of accidental hero work one day and helped the man's daughter with some thugs that were harassing her. Just cracked a few heads, tossed them around a little. It was no big deal, but when he walked the young lady home her father had insisted on returning the favor with something. When he noticed how nervous Cloud was around the man's pretty daughter, and asked if Cloud had trouble with women... well in the end they had worked out a deal where he could direct Cloud in some exercises to help out with that. Cloud had been agreeable to the idea of 'exercises'. Exercises he could understand; they were like training. His mission was every day to talk to an eligible female, preferably somebody new. Practice his flirting skills, and if possible do a casual, normal activity, all without stress because the next day he would be doing it again with somebody else. No danger of commitment. The idea was that he would just get more and more comfortable, and get over his little... problem. Seri would be an excellent choice; she didn't frighten him at all, or much, at least.

But she had arrived with Vincent, and while they didn't seem like a couple he wasn't sure how one would know with Vincent. The man wasn't exactly the cuddly sort.

"Be right back," Cloud said, and sprinted up the stairs.

He found Vincent in one of the spare bedrooms, the one with decent lighting and a table normally used for letter writing/sewing/making crayon works of art. Vincent had amassed at least a dozen small bullet piles and had a number of handguns in various stages of disassembly. The smell of the gun cleaning fluid was sharp and metallic, one of the smells Cloud associated with "Vincent". Cloud hadn't heard where Vincent had gotten these extra guns and he hadn't asked. Vincent always seemed to have a lot of guns with him.

"Hey Vincent, can I talk with you?"

Vincent looked up from his work, but his trained fingers continued to sort caliber by feel.

"I want to ask you something, and could you... not give me the kind of shit answer you always give Yuffie? Or some of that ambiguous silence?"

Vincent scowled and Cloud too-late realized with that kind of opener he was likely to get the ambiguous silence simply out of spite. He wasn't off to a very good start.

"Um… please?" Cloud tried.

Vincent gave a resigned look. "What is it?"

"Are you involved with Seri? I mean... you know what I mean." Cloud kept his face even, serious, what he hoped was polite. But he saw the furrow in Vincent's brow increase all the same.

"Because I'd like to take her for a walk, or something, you know, casual, if you're not. But I don't want to step on your toes. As it were." Cloud shifted his weight and moved his gaze from the unnatural red glow of Vincent's stare.

Vincent shut his eyes and sighed. Cloud. Vincent hadn't expected him to show interest in Seri. But what the hell. It seemed she liked blondes, and even if the world was about to unwrap itself in time why not let them enjoy the last few moments.

"I am not _involved_ with her," Vincent said, "Nor will I be."

Cloud nodded but didn't go away. Vincent tried to go back to his work, but could feel Cloud standing there. Eventually he looked up to hear whatever else it was the neurotic, blond git wanted.

"Why not?" Cloud asked simply.

Vincent stared at him, frowning.

"Because she seems to like you," Cloud continued, "And you get along well. Maybe you should think about, well, moving on. Maybe you're making a mistake."

Vincent darkened, Cloud's open, friendly expression only fueling his irritation.

"Worry about yourself, Strife, and let me keep track of my so-called mistakes!"

"Fine." Cloud turned and strode out the door, stinging a bit from Vincent's comment. Cloud might be a little socially stunted, he might have a difficult time with women, but at least he wasn't alone because he was a rude jerk. He was just...a little defective.

"Hey Seri!" Cloud trotted back downstairs to and almost ran into Seri at the foot of the stair. "Wanna go for a walk? Or something?"

Seri eyed Cloud warily. "With you?"

"Yeah, why not?" Cloud smiled a little. Dr. Mahler was right, this was getting easier.

Seri's lips parted slightly as she looked at him. That tiny smile on Cloud's lips was all it took to tip an already beautiful face into something dangerously hard to resist. But she wasn't blind; Tifa, gorgeous, busty Tifa, who owned her own business and house and looked to have some seriously dangerous moves, Tifa was obviously head over heels for Cloud. He lived in her house, the house where she was a guest and had been getting some very good food. Whatever it was going on here she really did NOT want to get in the middle of it.

"Uh, I think I'll just hang out," she said.

"Aw, c'mon," Cloud said, taking hold of one of her hands and tugging gently. "It's really nice out after it rains."

Cloud's smile broadened a little and Seri stared at him, captivated. The warm press of his fingers on her hand was rapidly turning her brain to mush. It was disorienting, especially since she was not the type of girl who got a lot of attention from men. At least not men with Cloud's type of good looks. He looked like the frat boys who constantly snubbed her at school. But this wasn't U of Mied; this was a real place, and these people were real with real problems and real lives.

"Uhhh, Cloud," she shook her head to clear it a bit, "Look, I appreciate the offer, but I'd rather not complicate things here." She licked her lips because they felt dry, then stopped, remembering how men normally were encouraged by the whole lip-licking thing. "I'm um..." she looked up the stairs. Where the hell was Vincent when some social dampening was needed? "I'm sort of... with somebody already."

"Sort of?"

"Yeah, I mean, I am. With somebody." She shot another glance upstairs, trying to figure out if Tifa had returned yet, maybe Tifa was up there somewhere, ready to emerge at any moment like a deadly hurricane and here she was blushing like a poinsettia with her hand in Cloud's.

"Oh," Cloud said, put off his game and unsure what to say. "Um, no problem. I'll just… go finish some stuff."

"Yeah, great... me too." Seri slipped her hand from Cloud's and escaped back to the garage and the safety of bomb assembly.

Cloud watched her go, and then looked up the stairs himself. He had seen her glance up there twice, up towards Vincent. Had Vincent lied to him, or mislead him? Even if Vincent and Seri weren't officially together, the guy could have at least given a warning that something was cooking between the two of them. Vincent could be such a bastard, and Cloud stomped up the stairs to dole out a piece of his mind. But as he neared the bedroom where Vincent was he remembered that speaking wasn't his strong suit. He always tripped over his words and sounded like an idiot, whereas Vincent had, maybe from somewhere in his esoteric training, the calm, intelligence, and vocabulary to deliver a tongue lashing that left the recipient feeling like a lower species. Cloud changed his tactic.

He stepped into the room and hovered near the table Vincent was working at, his body casting an annoying shadow over Vincent's work. Vincent rolled his eyes as he lifted his head and spoke.

"What now, Stri..."

Vincent didn't finish his statement as his body jerked itself up and away from the table. He was responding to his precog, for something in motion towards him, towards his head, and moving _fast_. But he wasn't quite fast enough to avoid catching a small tip of whatever it was. A sharp pain suddenly engulfed the left side of his face. He stared at Cloud in amazement as anger flared up with the heat that was rising up through his skin. Cerberus, the one gun that was not disassembled on the table for cleaning, was already drawn with his impossibly quick killer's reflexes before he caught up with himself and registered that Cloud was not continuing his attack. He re-holstered his weapon.

"What," Vincent stopped to position his jaw back into joint as a tiny, coppery trickle touched his tongue from the inside of his lower lip. The guy had actually drawn blood.

"What was that?" he hissed.

Cloud snapped his mouth shut from where it had been hanging open in mild shock. He hadn't actually expected to be able to tag Vincent, but he quickly remembered why he had done it. It was just as well, somebody needed to take the guy down a peg for once.

"That's because you're an asshole," Cloud said, and then spun and strode to the door. Then he abruptly turned and stepped back into the room.

"No. You're not getting off that easy. You're going to stand there with your famous silence and listen! I asked you nicely if you and Seri involved, and you denied it. You just let me go down there and get rejected!"

"I told you the truth," Vincent growled. "Were I to lie to you rest assured you would never figure it out!"

Cloud hesitated, distracted by Vincent's statement, that he could lie to Cloud with such impunity. And maybe he did, had, was doing so all the time? But Cloud dismissed those ideas. He thought better of Vincent than that, despite his current, temporary, probably stress-induced annoyance with him. Vincent was a good man, a bit cold and abrasive perhaps, a bit damaged, like all of them, but on the whole he could be trusted. But if Vincent had given him an honest answer, then what was up with Seri? Cloud realized now how nervous she had been, and that he must have made her so made him feel a bit guilty. And she hadn't actually said she and _Vincent_ were together… but she _had_ kept looking up towards him. He pitied her suddenly, because if Seri had fallen for Vincent, the iceman supreme, she was probably in for some serious heartache. Poor thing.

"You're still a bastard." Cloud said. "I think Seri has a thing for you and you plan to just let that go. Let go a chance for… love maybe. Because you're a coward!"

Vincent's left curled reflexively, thinking he would repay in spades Cloud's earlier blow. The metal caps over his knuckles would make a hell of a mess of the young man's pretty, delicate features. But he could do better. He leaned forward and spoke in almost a whisper.

"I watch you do the same every day, Cloud."

Cloud blinked, then abruptly looked at the floor as defeat sagged his shoulders. When he looked up again his eyes simmered in a slow fury.

"Don't pretend you know anything about that," Cloud hissed, then turned and quickly left.

ccccccccccccccccccc

Vincent paced up and down in front of the now empty bar, his fuming mood having caused the few patrons to slink from the place. Even the bartender, Jerry, had managed to disappear. He moved his jaw around, feeling the ache left there. He could have easily healed it with the smallest materia spell, but he did not. Instead he worried the area, working the jaw muscle and stoking up the pain as if it were a symbiote to both his ire and self flagellation. He didn't feel he was exactly in the wrong regarding Cloud, but Holy, couldn't he have a normal interaction with somebody for once? With a man he (basically) liked and respected? Cloud had come to him out of respect and good will, and somehow they had wound up in a fight. An actual fight. A fight in which despite the pain in his face he knew he had inflicted the greater injury. How did this happen? Giadamn pre-action jitters. Had Seri told Cloud she was interested in Vincent, that she would choose him over Cloud? Vincent mulled it over, feeling a bit flattered despite himself that any girl would choose him over Cloud. But he decided she probably said no such thing. Strife was forever bungling social nuances. Vincent preferred to ignore social convention, but he still possessed some finely tuned skills to read or control social interactions. The kind of skills that could twist the likes of Cloud, and he had done so. He had deliberately and brutally took a point he knew was tender for Cloud and jabbed one cold, pointy finger in it. Cloud had been right when he had called him a bastard.

"What's he doing?" Tifa whispered, trying to see around Barret, who was definitely hogging the best viewing spot around the corner of the wall that opened near the stairwell.

"Brooding. Pacing." he said.

"Still? What were they fighting about anyway?" Tifa had missed the whole thing, having come in from supply retrieval (aka grocery shopping) to find Cloud shut up in his room, Vincent scaring the customers, and Seri escaped to somewhere outside. Barret seemed clueless on the whole matter.

"Should somebody go talk to him?" Erik whispered.

"NO!" Tifa and Barret hissed simultaneously. Neither had seen Vincent in anything that might be construed as an "emotional state" beyond controlled annoyance. Now he was pacing, frustrated, looking as though he was beside himself and for once at a loss for what to do.

Then Vincent did something entirely unpredictable. He reached over the bar and pulled out two small glasses and a bottle of Absionne, a greenish, spicy Corel-style liquor that Tifa made in-house. Vincent seldom drank, and definitely not the green stuff. Absionne was more Cloud's drink. The next moment he was up the stairs, scattering the small group like a flock of startled birds. They looked at one another guiltily.

"I knew you were there," he called down to them, heading toward the door to Cloud's room.

He knocked. No reply.

"Cloud?" he pushed the door open slowly.

Cloud was lying on his back on his bed, arms folded under his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"What do you want, Vincent?"

"I want," Vincent set the glasses down on the nightstand, their hard bottoms clunking on the wooden surface, "to apologize." He uncorked the bottle and poured a shot in each.

Cloud sat up and looked from the peace offering to Vincent, surprise plain on his face.

"I'm sorry for what I said," Vincent said, avoiding Cloud's bright blue eyes. "I'm sorry for many things I do. Have done. Not done." Vincent picked up the glass nearest to him and shot it down. Cloud followed suit. Vincent poured a second.

Cloud stared down into his glass, admiring emerald green depths of the Absionne.

"I'm sorry I hit you," he said.

Vincent's face showed his skepticism.

"Well, a little anyway," Cloud added.

They downed their second shot together, and Vincent could feel the potent alcohol already warming in his stomach. He also felt better, relieved to have repaired this rift with Cloud, although he wasn't sure why it should matter to him now. No matter which way it went tomorrow his future with Cloud was over. But maybe it was important. Maybe discord and ill will somehow got loaded into the Lifestream that connected them both, and maybe that would transfer from one life to the next, even if that second life involved a reset of time itself. So maybe he was screwed in that regard whether his plan worked or not.

Vincent looked at Cloud, sad, resigned, still a little tense despite the alcohol, and forced the tiniest smile to his lips.

"We better go downstairs," he said, "I think it's our turn to cook."

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

**«my ηαmε ìs Chαμcεr ì comε ƒrom gold sαμcεr ì ώorқ ìn a cαsiηo τhεrε ì ώαlқ dowη the sτrεετ αll thε ρεoρle ì mεετ αsқ mε my ηamε αnd ì sαy my ηαmε ìs Chαμcεr ì comε ƒrom gold sαμcεr ì ώorқ ìn a cαsiηo τhεrε ì ώαlқ dowη the sτrεετ αll thε ρεoρle ì mεετ αsқ mε my ηamε αnd ì sαy my ηαmε ìs Chαμcεr ì comε ƒrom gold sαμcεr ì ώorқ ìn a cαsiηo τhεrε ì ώαlқ dowη the sτrεετ αll thε ρεoρle ì mεετ αsқ mε my ηamε » **

_Quit! Gigas!_

This particular racket had been going on for almost an hour and Vincent's head was starting to throb with the beat of the inane song. As if his nerves weren't raw enough. He took a deep breath and held it a moment before slowly exhaling. It was time. The children had been removed from the house after breakfast to lodge with a neighbor. Cid and Yuffie would arrive in an hour with the ship and here he was, letting minutes slip by. He knew this would be difficult, but he hadn't expected to turn into a Gaiadamn procrastinator. He kicked himself in his mental ass and walked quickly and quietly to the bar where Tifa was taking inventory of liquor. It was a mindless activity, one she had to know would be useless if they failed today, an activity she was doing it just to kill time.

"Hey Vincent!" she called brightly when she saw him. "Can I get you something?"

She was squatting down behind the bar with a notepad in hand and Vincent came up close behind her, thinking that was exactly what he would have expected her to ask. That was Tifa. Helpful. Kind, even with all she had been through in her young life, she was kind.

When he lowered down next to her, she turned to him, surprised to have Vincent come so close in what was such an un-Vincent like move. She continued to stare without the tiniest spark of suspicion and he pulled out a piece of glowing green materia and spoke the spell.

"Sleep," he said softly, feeling the power flow from the orb, tingling as it went up his arm and then from his body to hers before completing the circuit back again. He caught her limp form and gently laid her on the floor behind the bar, careful to re-shelve the bottle of clear liquor she had been holding.

He next slipped into the kitchen. There Barret barely grunted a 'hello' before returning his attention to the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. The big man wasn't as quick as Tifa, but he was naturally more suspicious. Vincent was forced to launch the spell from several feet away and then dart forward to catch Barret before he slipped from the chair. He thought of just draping his torso onto the kitchen table, but thought better of it. Vincent hooked his arms under Barret's armpits and dragged his entire bulk down the hall into the hall closet. He had to rearrange the contents, piling some on top of the sleeping Barret, but he managed to get the door shut.

_**What are you doing, Valentine? Not getting along with the other humans, are we?**_

Vincent could feel Chaos' amusement, the predatory thrill from the demon at seeing victims succumbing.

_It's naptime_ Vincent replied, and several of his demons laughed, recognizing this wasn't voluntary naptime, that there was some sort of wickedness afoot that they could enjoy. It was like afternoon cinema for them.

_Must be boring being a demon stuck inside of a human,_ Vincent thought, not to anyone in particular, but felt in response something familiar – a sensation of rapid peppering of something lightly hitting him all over his body. He often got this when he insulted one or more of his involuntary guests, and he imagined it was the equivalent of monkeys throwing feces at the zoo keeper. That thought got him another round of pelting.

He ignored the feeling and lightly bounded up the stairs to the room Erik was staying in. The young man was lying on the bed, but not sleeping. Vincent didn't bother creeping up to him, Erik wasn't enhanced, wasn't trained, and hadn't a chance of escape. He simply crossed the room and cast the spell so quickly the target hadn't even time to comprehend what was going on.

_Three down_

He moved next to the office, where Seri was on the computer. He could feel the demon attention inside him change. They liked her, but being liked by a demon wasn't necessarily a positive thing. It was like being "liked" by a girl in the third grade. It got you punched in the arm.

He came closer and leaned over her shoulder and smiled a little. He had begun to think she was all work and no play, but she wasn't working now, she was playing a game, some inane thing that Cloud had on the computer.

"Rats!" she said, as her little character exploded into a thousand colored shards.

"Come here," Vincent said, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her up.

She stood, confused, not the least because Vincent had touched her even though they weren't in immediate danger. He pulled them over to the bed he had been using, all the while pushing back on wings that Chaos wanted to pull and wrap.

_It's not nap time for you,_ he scolded, and brought out the green materia.

Seri's eye's flicked to it and then sudden alarm lit her face as he spoke the word.

"Sleep."

But she didn't drop right away, as she should have. Instead she turned white-blue and struggled for almost a second before relaxing to deadweight in his arms. He dropped her to his bed, feeling his demons still enjoying the show, enjoying seeing her succumb. But they were all quite forward now, pressing on his conscious mind, wanting to…

Sniff? That was probably what they wanted, as Vincent had a ridiculous urge to do so himself.

_She's fine_, he told them, and gave a rough shove to push all of them backwards. He knelt over Seri, studying the odd, iridescence of her skin. Her demon traits must have helped with some small resistance to the spell; he would have to check on her sooner than the others.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'll try to stop the war when I go back. Maybe you can live a good life, a normal life in Maritee."

He turned slowly and left the little office, his heart rate accelerating now because Cloud was next. There was a reason Cloud was left until last. He cranked his hearing all the way up and immediately heard a footstep from the other side of the door to the garage. Vincent ducked back into the office and flattened himself against the inner wall. Cloud hesitated at the open office door, smears of grease on his forearms and left cheek, and glanced in to see Seri asleep. He continued on to the kitchen in pursuit of ice water and Vincent was grateful he had moved Barret out of there. Vincent followed. The kitchen was a better place to attack Cloud than the garage, which was probably full of weapons.

He stepped in quickly and launched the sleep spell right at Cloud, but in the same instant Cloud threw up a shield, his own precog no doubt activated. Vincent could see the shock on Cloud's face through the bright shimmering sphere that protected his body. He dove through the shield at Cloud, but only managed to connect an elbow with Cloud's shoulder. Both men flew apart to opposite sides of the kitchen, Vincent with Cerberus drawn and Cloud with a two foot long blade that had been velcroed under the cabinet for surprise attacks. Cloud held the blade out towards Vincent, ready to spin and block bullets, thinking this wasn't at all what he had imagined for use of this house weapon.

"Vincent! What the fuck?" Cloud kept his focus on Vincent's face. At least he could see most of his face, with cloak collar lying down as was typical for him indoors. Vincent's mouth, jaw, and eyes were as cold and emotionless as Cloud had ever seen them. Every nerve in his body tingled, knowing full well that a shield would not stop those bullets from that big gun, and having no idea why Vincent was pointing it at him.

" Stalemate, Cloud. Lower your weapon."

"Wha-? No! Why are you doing this?"

"It's the only way."

Cloud looked at Vincent, trying to sort out this bizarre puzzle before him.

"I can't have you interfering," Vincent said. "Just let it go, Cloud. You don't need to fight any more. All you need to do is stand down."

Cloud stared, feeling a strong tug to do just as Vincent bid. He was tired of it, the fighting, the worrying, the trying so hard to make life right again. But he shook his head and tightened the grip on his weapon. They were awful close in here; if Vincent fired he would barely have time for his pre-cog to alert him and react to deflect the bullet with his blade. Probably he would deflect right back towards Vincent. This was no time to relax.

"I don't want to give up my life," Cloud said. "Vincent… how can you even think this? I don't want everything I've known to be erased!"

"Not everything," Vincent answered.

Cloud was silent for a moment. "You did something to the machine, didn't you?" Cloud said. "You went up there and did… something."

Cloud didn't need the answer that Vincent refused to give. He knew what Vincent must have done, what "not everything" meant. Vincent wanted to change the course of the world during his own lifetime, within the last fifty or so years.

"Vincent, no, if you let that happen, what's to stop everything from repeating itself just as it had?"

"I'll be transferred back, the same way Fuhito means to, with all my current knowledge and skills intact. I won't let it happen again."

"No," Cloud said, the confusion in his face now fully consumed by determination. "It's not right, I can feel it."

Cloud stiffened. "You need to be alive to do this, and as you said, we are at stalemate."

"Gods damn it, Cloud!" Vincent snarled, Cloud's stubbornness about sending him over the edge, and causing him to slip out a Bifröst colloquialism. "Haven't you suffered enough in this life?"

"Everybody suffers."

"Not to this degree! Occasionally people live out whole lives working and raising children and growing old! Not burning to death in a great fireball!"

Vincent gnashed his teeth, and Cloud was fascinated to see Vincent's face redden. Cloud couldn't remember ever seeing Vincent so affected by anything.

"Individuals, a handful of people, allowed this to happen," Vincent continued, his voice now far away.

"We all played our role," Cloud said gently. He had meant to move Vincent to a better place, but the red eyes narrowed at him anew.

"OH, right!" Vincent said, and laughed a little. It was a mean, cold laugh that Cloud didn't like the sound of at all. "You enjoy deluding yourself regarding your own guilt, don't you Strife? That way you don't have to face the fact that you were a victim!"

"And you weren't?" Cloud spat.

The two men glared at each other.

"Some of us had choices," Vincent said. "Once. But now every day not a minute goes by that I don't wish for…" Vincent's attention wandered off of his target. His target opted not to take advantage of that.

"… that fucking undo button!" Vincent finished. "That little button that undoes one event, a momentary slip, a lapse in judgment! A moment of weakness."

The barrel of the long gun in Vincent's hand was now swinging around the kitchen in an uncontrolled manner, and Cloud wondered if he wasn't actually in more danger than before.

"I was the one," Vincent hissed. "I was the one in place to stop this. Instead I let myself get shot... by an untrained cretin! I was a _Turk_! And a coward. By the time I pulled my head out of my ass it was too late for choices, every event that followed seemed locked in place. If only I hadn't..." Vincent stopped, not seeing Cloud or the kitchen or anything of his present life. Cloud noticed with alarm that Vincent's were shifting over to golden orange, a sign that he was losing control of more than just himself. He needed to do something to jar Vincent out of this mood. He chose to expose the most jarring thing he knew.

"Being a sperm donor doesn't make you responsible for the fate of the planet."

Vincent stared at Cloud, his jaw slowly falling slack as he let his weapon dip slightly.

"Oh, I think we all know," Cloud said. "Or guess, at least. I mean, crap, Sephiroth's face still creeps my dreams, it's impossible not to see the resemblance. And, well, knowing when and where you were active at ShinRa, and the way you reacted when the bastard said he had fathered Sephiroth..." Cloud stopped, a little amused at the expression on Vincent's face. "You said nothing, but you paled. You do realize it's possible for you to become paler than you normally are."

Cloud let himself smile a sad little half-smile.

"I'm actually more observant than I look," Cloud said. "You didn't raise him. You didn't alter him, you didn't make him. You just provided genetic code that could have come from anyone."

Now it was Vincent's turn to smile, but his was a bitter and knowing expression.

"No," he said. "I just made it all possible. When Lucretia told me she was pregnant, I abandoned her."

Cloud frowned, wondering how Vincent could do that, but…he knew too, in his heart, how anyone could fall prey to weakness. To let loved ones down.

"I became angry with her because I was afraid; a family was never part of my plans. So I left. I came to my senses, later, but then got derailed by a hostage situation that seemed important at the time. It was a month before I got back to Nibelheim, and then it was too late. She had married that… _freak_ and was passing the baby off as his."

Both men made a disgusted face.

"Go figure," Cloud said. "I'd have waited for you."

Vincent stared at Cloud, unsure whether to be hysterical or shoot him.

In the next room Seri's mind felt water logged as she dragged herself up from too much, or maybe too deep, a sleep. Her skin felt sore, burned, hypersensitive.

_Blue_, she thought, _damn it, I know I'm blue and I hope nobody is looking_.

In another few seconds she was awake enough to open her eyes, to see she was gratefully alone, and to remember there was something urgent. Vincent. Vincent had done this to her, held up one of those shiny materia balls and she had fallen asleep. For how long? She could hear voices, Vincent's and Cloud's, coming from the kitchen. They were arguing, or at least Vincent was. Silently she pulled her gun- she thought of it as hers now- from the cargo thigh pocket from her pants. Something was horribly wrong, and she knew she was the weak player here. But she had some experience with dealing with these mako-enhanced men. She slipped into her no-mind, no-intent state of being as best she could and crept down the hallway. She bent low to peek into the kitchen door, knowing that a head peeking at knee level was less apt to be noticed than one at normal head level. Luckily Vincent and Cloud were so absorbed with each other that neither seemed to see her. They had weapons pointed at one another, and she didn't stop to wonder who the aggressor was. Cloud wasn't the one who had ambushed her into sleep. Cloud wasn't the one who had been acting strangely (except for the whole inviting her for a walk thing, but she figured that didn't count). Vincent was the one to go after, and even if the result was probably going to be no better than when she had attacked the First Class SOLDIER, she was going to do it just the same. She took a deep and silent breath. It was either shoot him from here, or get close enough that even he couldn't dodge the bullet. As in right on top of him. She knew she had a better chance at firing from where she was, and it could give Cloud the opening he needed. But her finger stiffened around the trigger as she looked down the gun sights at Vincent and she somehow couldn't make her finger obey. So she emptied her mind completely and leapt forward. The next thing she knew she was speaking.

"Drop it, Vincent."

Her gun was almost touching the side of his head, but he didn't seem surprised by her in the least. Instead Cloud darted forward, lowering his sword and putting a hand on the long barrel of Cerberus, pushing it downward.

"It's OK," Cloud interjected, "we're just… doing a little thing."

Seri slowly lowered her own weapon, confused. She looked from one man to the other.

"Why did you make me sleep?" n She asked Vincent.

Vincent didn't answer her, and Cloud was staring at her.

"Why are your ears blue?" he asked.

"Ugh! Nevermind!" Seri snapped. She was sorry she was short with him, but she was crabby, confused, and shaking a little with the adrenaline burst from what she was doing. Whatever that was. And Vincent had gone practically catatonic on her.

"Vincent Valentine!" she hollered.

Vincent acted as though he didn't hear her and his gaze remained fixed on the floor.

"Uh, maybe you needed a nap?" Cloud suggested.

Seri gave him an evil look and Cloud slunk back a bit.

"I reset the machine," Vincent said, still not looking up. "To back us up about thirty-five years instead of five thousand."

Seri stared at him for a moment. "To find the woman you lost?"

"Among other things."

"I've lost a lot of things too, my family, my friends, my home, my _country- _but you've no right to decide for me to give up the life I have now."

"I know. I knew."

"I see. You just didn't care."

"Well, hey," Cloud jumped back in. "No harm done. We're no worse off than we were."

"I had a chance to set the machine to null result; so that it did nothing." Vincent confessed.

Seri and Cloud groaned.

"Can we still change it to do that?" Seri asked.

"That monstrous temple door locked behind me. I'm not sure we can get it back open, unless Erik still has his key."

"He doesn't," Seri said. "He said he lost it. But Nyssa may still have hers."

Vincent nodded. "We have to get to her anyhow."

"OK," Cloud said. "Looks like you have one extra thing to do when we get there, to try and get that key and fly back up to the temple to nullify the machine."

Cloud studied Vincent. "I need to hear we can trust you to do that." He put both hands on Vincent's shoulders. To his alarm the fabric of Vincent's cloak seemed to move under his hands, as if trying to shirk him off. Cloud blinked and retracted his hands, then absently rubbed his palms against his pants.

"I'll believe you if you say it," Cloud continued, "I know you could lie and I wouldn't know. You told me so earlier to my face and have now proved it. But I'll believe you now anyway."

Vincent smiled a little at Cloud. It was hard not to be a little endeared by such a trusting nature. "The trick to lying, Strife, is tell half of the truth and let the listener fill in the implied non-truth. Your problem is you don't listen carefully enough."

Cloud scrunched up his face. "Is that some sort of Turk-ism, 'non-truth'?"

Vincent stared at him, waiting.

"Hey, you didn't answer!" Cloud finally realized.

Vincent raised his eyebrows as if to say 'you see?'

"Will you?" Cloud asked, "Will you re-set the machine so that it does nothing, if you can?"

"Yes," Vincent said. "If there is any way to do so, I will."

"OK!" Cloud said a little too brightly, clapping his palms together. "We're all set then. We just need to stay sane for another hour." He looked around the kitchen, at the abandoned crossword puzzle on the kitchen table. "Where's Barret?"

**A/N: It's an old song: My name is Jan Jansen (pronounced Yon Yonson) I come from Wisconsin I work in the lumber mill there, I walk down the street all the people I meet, ask me my name and I say... My version was far less charming, but hey, how can you beat a name like Jan Jansen?  
**

**My day in this chapter is too long. I don't think there's any way they can have breakfast, make a plan, drive into the city and have all this action, then have Seri and Barret drive back in to collect stuff then make other stuff out of that stuff all before dinner. I didn't want to re-work it becuase it was a bit of a puzzle how to do so, and I'm slow enough as it is. Oh well, better luck next time**


	18. Battle Prep

**Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or any of the characters. I just blithely use them for my own entertainment.  
**

**A/N: Wow, what a long break. I have no excuse other than KICK-ASS COSPLAY COSTUMES! But I fear a summary is warranted here. Vincent, Seri, Erik, Cloud, Tifa, and Barret are all congregated at Seventh Heaven. Cid and Yuffie are preparing an airship needed for the assault on the old reactor where Fuhito and Odin are hiding out. They need to disable the power to the time machine, and also save Erik's wife. Vincent's betrayal of setting the machine to re-run his own past and knocking out his own team has been discovered, and he learns he no longer has the Turk's capacity for such treachery. He agrees to go ahead with the assault plan, and, if possible, get the key from Erik's wife that might allow him to re-set the machine to harmless, null value. **

**We're almost done.  
**

"I can't believe you stuffed him in a closet!" Cloud hissed, trying hard not to jar Barret out of the sleep spell while carefully dislodging one meaty, deadweight leg from where it was caught on the doorjamb. A tennis racket tumbled over Barret's head and into the hallway.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Vincent said.

Cloud almost laughed out loud. One thing he had learned in life was that if you found yourself doing something ridiculous, then the previous decision was almost certainly not a good one, no matter how sound it had seemed 'at the time.' And their current situation qualified as pretty damn ridiculous. Barret was snoring loudly, half tangled in a badminton net. The hallway was littered with boots, umbrellas, brooms, an old radio, and one large, plastic, toad-shaped garden ornament. In an uncoordinated tangle of bodies they finally managed to move Barret back into the kitchen where they draped him onto the table over his crossword.

Cloud and Vincent looked at one another.

"You're the one who put him under," Cloud said.

"Revive," Vincent said, and Barret gave a choking snort before raising his head.

"Hmmph, must have dropped off." He rubbed his eyes. "How much time, Cloud?"

"Less than an hour."

Barret blinked a few more times as he refocused on his crossword. "Don't suppose you know a four letter word for "deceive"?

"Bilk," Vincent said, and moved away from the kitchen. Seri and Cloud followed.

"Have you used materia before?" he asked Seri.

She scrunched up her face. "A couple of times."

"Revive spell is about as easy as it gets. Your try Erik; he's upstairs in bed." Vincent handed her a green materia ball and Seri ran up the stairs.

"You sure?" Cloud asked quietly. "Because now might be a good time to just, you know, let him be." They had already been through the whole "we should leave the untrained country boy at home", but to Cloud it seemed to bear re-visiting.

"I know," Vincent said. "But I seemed to have burned out even my capacity for subterfuge today. He was told he would be allowed to come. If we come back but didn't manage to save his wife, how will he ever recover from that? He'll have no… closure."

Cloud nodded, finally asking what was foremost on in his mind, what had been clamoring for attention the moment his own mortality ceased to be threatened.

"What did you do with Tifa?"

Vincent shifted uneasily. "Behind the bar."

Cloud went ahead of him and within a second Vincent heard Cloud speak the Revive spell.

"Mmm," Tifa said, sleepy, her eyes fluttering open to see Cloud above her. She stretched, supported in Cloud's arms, and Cloud felt his heart rate pick up along with a bit of panic arise as he watched her curves move and shift under her form-fitting, sleeveless top.

"I was tired," she said, smiling up at him. Then she frowned. "Did Vincent sleep spell me?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Vincent!" she hollered and quite suddenly Cloud's arms were empty, leaving him both relieved and dejected.

It didn't take Tifa long to find Vincent, who was still lurking in the hallway. "What is _wrong _with you?" She punched him in the arm, hard enough to make him wince. "Why did you do that? What, did you think I needed the rest? Were you… just…" Tifa took to sputtering. It was true she had been fretting, worrying, obsessively moving the bottles from one shelf to another for about two hours, but who said he got decide for her when and how to relax?

"I'm sorry," Vincent said, hanging his head.

"You are just such a freaking weirdo!" Tifa shouted, an immediately regretted her words. She was just so angry, or at least she had been for a moment. Vincent showed no additional reaction to her words, but they hadn't gone through hell together without her knowing there was something under there. He did feel the hurts of life. Quite a lot, really.

"Ohhh, Vincent… I'm sorry. I didn't mean it," she reached out gently, thinking normally Vincent didn't let himself be touched, but maybe this time it would be OK. She touched her fingertips softly to one of his hands and was dismayed to have him jerk and pull away a bit.

"Stick to his hair," Seri said, sliding past them in the narrow hallway, "he does better with that." And to prove her point she reached up and tousled the hair on Vincent's crown as if he were a tall, morose pet.

Tifa smiled at Vincent's horrified expression at being treated so, and then reached up herself to try. She petted a thick lock from above his headband and then pulled the considerable length through her fingers. Seri seemed to have been right- he responded OK to that. At least he looked up at her without jerking away.

"I'm sorry," they both tried to say again to each other simultaneously, and then both smiled a little.

"Barret got a call from Cid," Seri called from behind the bar, interrupting the tender moment between Vincent and Tifa and also some intense glowering by Cloud. "He'll be at the barren lot in ten minutes,"

The barren lot was an undeveloped spot of edge large enough to set a small airship, and it would take them almost ten minutes to get there. They needed to get moving, but Seri was pulling something out from behind the bar. It was dark amber and unmarked.

"Is this whisky?" she asked.

"More or less," Tifa said.

"May I? Mariteen pre-battle tradition."

Tifa shrugged and Seri found four shot glasses.

"Live or die," Seri said in way of a toast, Vincent recognizing it a translation of "neotawi", the common Wutaian toasting word that meant exactly that. Wutai and Maritee probably used the same toast, or cross contaminated one another with bits of language. It was a good a toast as any, well suited in fact for desperate people in desperate times.

They all four hoisted their glassed and swallowed their drinks, Seri coughed, her eyes watering a bit at the Edge idea of "more or less whisky". Tifa laughed at her, noticing that her own little nap had actually improved her mood quite a lot. She grabbed Seri by the arm and the two girls ran out to get their gear, as if they were two giddy teenagers getting ready for a dance. Vincent was left alone with Cloud, who was still frowning at him.

"What?" Vincent asked, although he knew what it was. Tifa touching his hair.

"Nothing."

"I thought you weren't pursuing that avenue."

Cloud shook his head, avoiding the subject, and tried to exit and avoid Vincent. Vincent hooked a hand around Cloud's rounded bicep to hold him in place, hardly able to believe he was about to accost Cloud in the same manner that had bugged him so much only the day before.

"I may be… a 'freaking weirdo'. And a deceiver ." He was about to add 'by training', but didn't. How could he know it wasn't by nature? He had been recruited by ShinRa at a young age, and it seemed now so very long ago.

"Maybe I am too damaged to move on, but I would like to see something better for you. That you could look for love yourself. She's crazy about you; I know you know that."

Cloud put both palms over his eyes and leaned his head all the way back. He stayed there so long Vincent began to wonder if he had fallen asleep in this unlikely position.

"Aerith would want you to move on," Vincent ventured.

Finally Cloud righted himself, dragging his hands down his face as he regarded Vincent with a small smile.

"It's not that. We were never… just some residual friendliness left over from bits of Zack in my brain."

Vincent nodded; he had never been clear on that point.

"I know Tifa loves me. I cherish her more than everything and it breaks my heart to keep disappointing her. It's just that..."

"You aren't attracted to her?" A thread of incredulity escaped Vincent's normally controlled voice.

"OH, sure. When I'm sitting around by myself." Cloud made a motion with his hand that both men understood. "But being around her, or any pretty girl, now that I'm just ME and not me plus "Casanova Zack"… I get so stupid nervous. It the worst around Tifa, though. For the first 10 years I knew her, since our childhood, she was a little sister to me. Even when I found her again in Neibelhiem, struck down by Sephiroth, she was so crumpled and small, all I wanted to do was protect her. Then the next time I see her I'm out of my mind with mako poisoning, lost and confused, and suddenly she is this towering bastion of strength serving as nursemaid and mother to me. And as beautiful as I know she is, I just don't... can't..." Cloud looked as though he would like to explain further but could only shake his head and motion in a vague way toward his own person.

"Are you saying you're sexually dysfunctional?"

"Yes." Cloud said flatly. "Thanks, by the way, for bringing up that word 'dysfunctional' that I've been trying to avoid."

_So there_, Cloud thought. He had said it. It was kind of a relief in a way. Hero of the planet, everyone expected him to be, well, virile.

Vincent leaned back on his heels and regarded Cloud sympathetically.

"Are you sure you don't prefer men?"

"Yes," Cloud answered quickly. "I already-." He stopped short, really NOT wanting to describe that experience to Vincent in any detail. "It was horrible. I was disgusted and a bit nauseous the whole time".

Vincent made a bit of a face; he knew exactly what Cloud meant. Even the idea of touching another man's privates made him a little queasy as well.

"Well, I'll grant you've been through a fair amount of weirdness," Vincent said. "Maybe you need to leave for awhile. Refresh your perspective."

"How can I leave her?"

"How can you stay?"

"Vince! Cloud!" Barret hollered from some other part of the house, "Get your butts out here! What the hell are you two doing in there anyway? Better not be anything disgusting!"

Vincent rolled his eyes. "Showtime."

Cloud laughed a little and headed for the hallway. "You know Vincent," he said, casting a look over his shoulder, "I think this is the most I've ever talked to you."

"We should attack each other more often," Vincent said, and gave Cloud's back a small shove to speed them along.

Ccccccccccccc

"Reiterate, please." Vincent had his head bowed, using his ears only as the team reviewed their plan one last time before boarding the ship.

"Barret, Tifa, and I drop to the roof first," Cloud said. "Them on lines, me free fall. Signal me at thirty feet, Cid, that's my safe limit for landing free fall."

"Thirty feet," Cid repeated. "As if I'd forget the fucking thirty foot rule."

"We infiltrate fast," Cloud continued, "Down through the larger opening in the roof on the south side of the beam. We go right for Odin and Fuhito. Hopefully they're together, but if not we each attack whichever ones we're closest to."

Tifa nudged Erik to present the next part. The young father was looking a little pale and she thought it might help his nerves to focus on the details to speak them aloud.

"Mr. Valentine and I drop next, he'll glide us both down with those wings he sometimes has." Erik scrutinized Vincent, feeling detached and dreamlike. Surely this was a dream; it couldn't be he was standing outside of Midgar promising to do these bizarre things. "We sneak in while Odin and Fuhito are distracted. We find Nyssa and get her out. Then Mr. Valentine takes her key up to the temple and tries to stop the machine. "

Vincent nodded, and waited for the next report.

"Yuffie and I drop from ropes on the ship's second pass," Seri said.

"We each carry a keg," Yuffie said, referring to the materia transformer bombs. She had taken to calling them "kegs" due to their shape, resembling small beer kegs. "I drop first, Seri is next, each on opposite sides of the beam. Cid is going to try really hard not to crash the ship into the beam and kill us both."

"You'll be lucky if I don't drop your ass into the fucking beam, brat," Cid snarled.

Vincent sighed. The two had been bickering non-stop since their return. Their two days together must have exceeded their tolerance for one another, plus they both looked extremely tired. Vincent wondered if they had slept.

"Enough," he said gently, but with command in his voice that caused both to stop and look to him. He graced them with a small smile that caused Yuffie's mouth to hang open slightly "We need you to save your fighting energy for the mission. And thank-you both, for the ship. Our odds of getting the hostage out alive were very slim without it.

Cid and Yuffie both nodded an acceptance of a hard-won compliment from Vincent.

"Yuffie and I secure the bombs about ten feet from the edge of the hole made by the beam," Seri said. "We only trigger the timers on command from the ground team, um, from Vincent first, Cloud if he's not available, Tifa next, then Barret."

"OK, Vincent said, buddy check on equipment-"

"I got a problem, Vincent," Cloud interrupted. "With the plan."

Vincent cocked one eyebrow at Cloud.

"I know this is your call, but why aren't you and I going in first after Odin? I know I've got good fighters, but you and I can drop faster, without ropes. We should take him out as fast as we can, then we'll have time to do everything else."

Vincent nodded, Cloud's objections were valid. He just didn't know a few key details. "I have to stay away from Fuhito and his box. Chaos is… of the same species as Odin, controlled in the same way. While in the temple in Bifröst Fuhito activated the box and I lost control."

"Whoa, whoa," Cloud said. "You mean to say he might be loose right in the middle of everything? Are you sure of the range of this thing?"

"No," Vincent admitted. "But I believe I can feel when it starts to impose its influence. If I can't come down I'll send Yuffie down with Erik instead."

Erik's eyes went wide with alarm at the thought of being handed off to the young girl.

"You can do it," Vincent said to Erik, then nodding towards Yuffie, "She's good."

"You bet!" Yuffie jumped up in excitement, landed partly on an old can and nearly turned her ankle.

"When she's on the job and focused," Vincent clarified.

"What does Chaos do when you're not controlling him?" Cloud asked.

Vincent thought about Chaos, killing whomever, grabbing Seri, wallowing in the pool for reasons Vincent still didn't understand. "Whatever he wants," Vincent said. "He… makes chaos."

Cloud thought about Odin's four-pronged arsenal. "We could use some chaos. You can't direct him at all?"

Vincent shook his head, remembering the helpless feeling of the temple. He had directed Chaos some, but only as far as supplying suggestions.

"He won't help us?" Seri asked. "He could be uniquely helpful. He knows Odin."

"He can't be trusted," Vincent said automatically and received something that felt like a slap. He could actually feel it stinging on his cheek, his right cheek, along with an indignant glowering. It was a lie, a knee jerk lie borne of his resentment towards a being who had no more control over their situation than he did.

"I take it back," Vincent said. "He's trustworthy, in a way. I can't make him help, but if he says he will, he will. But I've no expectation that he would."

_**Maybe I would.**_

Vincent was silent for a moment, feeling Chaos waiting like a pregnant storm.

_What do you want?_

_**Seri.**_

Vincent clenched his teeth involuntarily. It had been a while since Chaos had asked for a human and Vincent had hoped the demon had given up on it. And he'd never asked for a specific human before. But this was a dead end; Vincent did not trade in humans, at least not since he'd been put to sleep as a Turk and woke up something else. It bothered him now to burn human life for his goals. He supposed it always had on some level, but in his previous life he had been able to push it aside and not think about it. Thirty years of wallowing in his subconscious had wiped out his ability to do that.

_For the last time you are not eating any humans! _Vincent growled_. Pick something else!_

Then Chaos laughed, a drawn out laugh so un-cynical and uncharacteristic that Vincent was a bit amazed by it.

_**I'm not hungry. Not in that way.**_

The hair rose on the back of Vincent's neck as he finally understood what Chaos meant. A heated flush burst up from his chest and into his face, an uncomfortable heat. He inadvertently made use of that high volume head-voice he had recently discovered.

_OUT OF THE QUESTION!_

He could feel Chaos wince and tense at the noise but not retreat. The demon remained, hot, close, and intimate.

_**I would be willing to stay in the background, behind you. There is nothing else I will accept as payment for my help.**_

Vincent's was mildly disgusted with himself when he realized he was considering this option, but the idea of Chaos (and the others for that matter) 'in the background' during... any kind of romantic interlude, was so disturbing he doubted his own functionality under such a scenario. Not to mention it wasn't wholly up to him. Not in any way that he was willing to perpetrate.

"Vincent?" Seri had apparently been observing him for several seconds, and he blinked at the frank stare of her brown and blue flecked eyes. For an uncomfortable moment Vincent was unsure if she had heard Chaos, but he didn't think so. He was getting a feel for when the demon communications were private and when they were sent outward.

"He's bargaining. But I don't' like his terms."

"Would he be considering this if he didn't already want to do it? Or didn't think he had to?" Seri blinked at him, looking intently into his eyes, reading, feeling.

"No, he wouldn't," she finally announced.

_**Bitch**_

"Pistlach," she replied, pronouncing the world with a small hiss in the back of her throat.

Vincent turned his attention inwards, expecting to continue the mental hostilities. But Chaos was still and quiet, looking at Seri. Despite himself he asked something rather non-germane to the issue at hand.

_What does Pistlach mean?_

_**It means pig. But it's... a humorous insult for us. It's something Freyja used to say. An odd memory for her to have tapped into.**_

Vincent let this sit for a moment, let Chaos muse or reminisce or whatever it was he was doing.

_Is it true? What she said?_

_**That I am a pig?**_

_That's already established. You know what I mean. That you have to do this. _Suddenly it struck Vincent what it could to be, what it had to be. The thing that could control Chaos better than he could.

_Something's changed. You are called, aren't you? Odin's actions are threatening the planet in some way, and the planet has summoned you. Breaking the materia link doesn't free you from this? Not once the call has come out?_

_**It doesn't mean I have to do things in any particular way. What is it you are fond of saying? Inept help is worse than no help? **_

Vincent sighed and focused on Seri once more, her wide featured brown face lifted towards him, expectant. A perfectly beautiful human. Mostly.

_You are interested in her because she caries part of Freyja?_

_**Because she likes you and does not fear us. You push everyone else away. I do not want her to go away. **_

A bleak loneliness filled Vincent like a slow fog until he could feel it right out into his fingertips. And it wasn't just coming from Chaos. All of his demons were male, whether by chance or something to do with his own nature he didn't know, but they all felt a sympathetic longing. It was the yearning and memory of mothers, sisters, of a nurturing element. He wasn't even sure if demons had mothers and sisters, but definitely they all had similar nostalgic feeling associated with _female. _For a kind word when a criticism was deserved, for an oasis of softness in a hard desert of a world. As he felt and listened, the feeling seeping through him, Vincent felt his own ache of emptiness join that song.

_I will... try, _Vincent said, not just to Chaos, but to all of them. _An attempt at connection. I'm not promising anything... romantic. A single step is all._

_**Accepted. I can distract Odin, lure him away from your team's entrance. He will want to talk to me. When the little blond comes in we will have Odin flanked. **_

"He agrees," Vincent said with a glance to Cloud, sure he would not like label "little" that Chaos had given him. "He can draw Odin away from the entrance area; give the team time to get down from the roof before he detects them."

"That's helpful," Cloud said. "Will he fight too?"

_**I would love to fight.**_

"He'll fight."

Cccccccccccc

As the ship prepared to take off Seri squatted next to the two canister bombs she and Barret had made from the materia transformers, the things Yuffie was calling "kegs". Their part of the plan hadn't changed. After releasing Vincent to the wind near the middle of the city, the ship would circle away in order to delay another ten minutes. Or less, if Seri could get communication from Chaos indicating they needed to drop sooner. None of them knew the range limit on that communication, but Seri had been practicing just in case, exchanging a few simple comments. Chatting, really.

_Chaos, what color are you? _She asked silently.

_**Mmmm, I'm a red, sweetie.**_

Vincent hadn't heard her question, but since Chaos had never called _him_ anything like "sweetie" he assumed the comment was meant for Seri. He looked over to find her staring at him intently in a way that made him uncomfortable and irritated.

As if she detected his annoyance, Seri's focus shifted from somewhere inside of Vincent to his face. "I asked him what color he was."

Vincent frowned, trying to piece together the answer with the question. "His wings are red, but skin is pale… I think."

Vincent tried to remember the once or twice he'd seen the reflection of his face while Chaos. It had been pale, but it also had looked quite a good deal like himself. He was highly blended with Chaos somehow, much moreso than the other three. As for the rest of the demon body… the skin that was always under the always black cladding, what color was it? He had never even tried to look at it.

"And Freyja?" Seri asked, although she knew the answer.

_**A Blue.**_

"_**A**_ blue." She repeated. "What about Odin?"

_**A Green.**_Chaos yawned, and Vincent repressed an urge to yawn also in some sort of mental echo.

A slow understanding was spreading across Seri's face. "Do your people come in other colors?"

_**Of course not.**_

Seri almost jumped in her seat with excitement. "That's the cause of the Red, Green, and Blue references that keep popping up! That bit about 'spending' Blue to stop the beam – it's not materia, but a planet defender. Something to summon to stop this process. Can we summon one of the blue defenders? Like… Shiva?"

Vincent shook his head. "We would need the specific materia link. We haven't any for summoning."

"OK, Vince," Cid hollered from the front of the ship. "We're in position, time to get your red-winged ass out the door!"

Vincent took one last look at Seri. She had suddenly taken to clutching her drop rope rather forcefully, her mouth set in a hard, anxious line. It occurred to Vincent that that he had been with her on every other action since Bifröst. This was the first time they were splitting up.

"You'll be OK," he said, grasping the big lever for the side door and giving it a yank. The door slid open, wind and noise from the rotors filling the cargo area.

She gave him a small, forced smile, and he had an awkward urge to touch her shoulder, or maybe face, to give some comfort. He was annoyed to admit to himself that feeling was probably all his own, since Chaos had, unbelievably, gone to sleep.

_Wake UP, Chaos! _ Vincent snapped, wondering how the bugger could have dozed off at a time like this. But the demon smoothly came to life and spread his wings the moment they cleared the ship and they glided in a slow easy arc toward the reactor. The air felt cool and clean after the previous day's storm, and he wished he could stay in the air for awhile.

_**We could**_

Vincent ignored Choas and his own desire to play hooky. Instead he headed to the roof of the reactor where they touched down, graceful and silent.


	19. Losses

**Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or any of the characters. I just wish I did.  
**

Chaos folded his wings for storage as Vincent landed. The domed surface of the reactor roof was slick with soot, making it tricky to keep footing on the sloped surface. Pieces of it moved underneath him as if it might give way at any moment. A good ten meters above him loomed the center tower, the middle of which was consumed by the mako beam on its way into the giant pyramid, still looming far overhead. Vincent could feel the beam buzzing like live insects, making his skin, Chaos' skin, tingle the way static charge might make all his hair stand on end. He could feel something else too- his controlling presence over the body he occupied was slipping away.

_The __**box,**_ he and Chaos said simultaneously in their shared head. Vincent was still driving, but another few steps and he no longer would be. He took the steps despite his trepidation, took one slow breath at the ragged edge of the largest roof opening, then dropped into it, wings fanning out to slow his fall. By the time they touched down Vincent was no longer in control of so much as an eyeblink. Chaos re-folded his wings and stepped slowly from the pool of light that spilled from above. Golden irises adjusted instantly to the shadows until they were only shining wires around pupils that scintillating with their own black, inner fire.

He stepped in front of the entrance to the alcove that Fuhito and Odin had made into their base camp, and both looked up immediately. Fuhito's eyes, dark but with that slight, almost out-of-place mako shine, still held a ferocious intensity despite the man's distinctly bedraggled and obviously un-showered condition. Chaos twitched his nostrils as the smell of the human reached him. He had learned much about humans and their strong smells during his time with Vincent. This one's smell hadn't enough tang to be called fearful, but certainly stressed. And of course rank with the bacteria that gave humans BO. Like an apparition, he stepped slowly past the opening and into the shadows beyond.

"Stay here," Odin commanded. "I need to talk with him"

"He's here to make trouble," Fuhito warned, "Or at least the human he's tied to is."

Odin waved him off as if his words were no more than gnat buzzing in his ears and followed the red drape of Chaos' wings. They walked along in this way, silent leader and follower, until Chaos stopped and turned to face Odin.

"I see the little man is right," Odin said, squinting at Chaos' face. "You've got yourself infected with one of these creatures."

Chaos shrugged, smiling enough to show his ferocious teeth. "It's tolerable."

"Why are you here?"

"I came for you. Did you think I would not?"

"I did not know you were loose," Odin lied.

"My… infection allows this."

Odin nodded. "And you expect me to believe that you are unencumbered by this entity?"

"Their species is weak."

"Yes, they are weak. They should be our servants. But this is their time, and their world now."

Chaos was silent for a moment, thoughtful. "I am most often subservient to him. It is… difficult. But not now. You have something, something that suppresses him."

Now both gods of Aasgard smiled, and Vincent felt a mild panic rising. Chaos may have been true to his word before, but now maybe everything was changing. Maybe this temptation would prove too great.

_**Hush**_ the words filled Vincent far more potently than Chaos normally did. Was this what it was like to be the 'subservient' one? Vincent silently hoped Chaos would not shout, as he himself had taken to doing recently.

_**Your anxiety is impeding my ability to perform.**_

Vincent relaxed. The fact that Chaos had used almost the exact same reproachful phrase as Vincent often had while their roles were reversed gave him the glimmer of hope he needed. It was like an understood nod, a private joke. In this new, relaxed state he sent what he hoped were positive, encouraging vibes and felt a resonance back. It was soothing, something they could give to one another, and Vincent took a moment to appreciate that in a way he had never been able to while he was in control.

"I can erase these humiliations for us," Odin was saying, his tone low and seductive. "I mean to; I am in fact on the very verge of doing so."

"You have activated your machine," Chaos said, a hint of disgust lacing his words.

"I see you still object to the machine. You opposed me before where it was concerned. Allowed my jailors, OUR jailors, to prevail."

"Because your choice was untenable!" Chaos snapped. Vincent, sensing possible disaster from what he knew was the demon's fiery temper, immediately sent forward a calm feeling, one he used when he himself was upset and wished not to show it. Again he felt the responding wave, like in kind.

"I would have gladly done your bidding, handled things in our way," Chaos said, his voice now better controlled but teeth clenched. "In our traditional way. I would have exacted vengeance worthy of legend. But no. I, who sat at your right hand, you turned away from me. You went instead with some…backwards, left-handed choice. _Technology!_." Chaos all but spat out the word.

"None of that matters!" Odin said, his voice sharp, pitch rising. "The machine works, don't you see? Forste..."

Odin put a hand to Chaos' shoulder, squeezing slightly. Vincent felt the touch as if it were his own shoulder, reminded himself it was his shoulder, sort of, remembered Seri in the airship, how he had wanted to touch her shoulder and hadn't, he thought of Cloud and his confession, of Tifa and her forgiving him for though she hadn't known what he had been up to. Odin's voice mulled around in his head- he had called Chaos 'Forste', maybe his actual name, maybe a pet name. His mind swam with these and a hundred other emotionally charged thoughts, confusing him, dizzying him. There was something in Odin's touch that was doing this, disorienting him.

_**It's typical, it's Odin**_Chaos sounded dizzy, drunk. _**Just… need… to…**_

_Concentrate! _Vincent ordered, reaching as last resort for that mental state he used to overcome fear and panic, just as he had while enduring the horrors of Hojo's lab, where he had lain helpless, unable to move. His helpless situation was not so dissimilar now – no control over his body. But he had his mind. Vincent concentrated, ignoring clamoring outside world over which he had no control. The flow between him and Chaos resumed, stuttered but flowing. Mental clarity took up a fragile hold, a baby's grasp on their sanity.

"Forste," Odin repeated. "I can restore for you what was. Everything we lost. Our city, our rapture. Your lively social life."

At this Chaos smiled slightly.

"Are you not lonely?" Odin asked, and Vincent felt another wave of disorientation, a tsunami of emotion. He did his best to ride the wave, and to silently offer some stability to Chaos.

_You're not alone,_ Vincent said, and filled the thought with mental images of his friends- Cloud, Tifa, Seri, Barret, Cid, and even Yuffie, giving special emphasis on the women, and Seri in particular, since Chaos seemed to like her. But mostly he brought forward himself, an offering of companionship albeit imperfect, maybe a rival more than a friend, but a constancy of contact all the same. He continued in this exercise, wondering who he was trying to convince, Chaos, or himself?

"We can have Baldir returned to us," Odin continued.

At this Vincent could feel that Odin had made his mistake, by expressing his own selfish desires he had broken his unnatural control over Chaos' attention. Chaos grinned, and Vincent could feel the falseness, the lie in that grin. Somewhere inside the demon, Vincent Valentine grinned as well.

"Come," Odin said, sounding confident. "I'll show you."

_Can't hear you. _Another voice came into their shared headspace. _We're dropping Cloud now. _Vincent recognized the voice as Seri's, hearing her for the first time inside his head. It wasn't really a "voice" sound at all, just as Chaos' voice was not a voice. It was more a feeling, and this feeling was rich, open, friendly. A good feeling. He was about to respond, or at least give it a try, but Chaos beat him to it.

_**Go for it, we're ready.**_

A short stab of excitement came though the 'Seri conduit' and then she was gone. She had got the message, the attack was on its way, and he and Chaos were… what? Helping? Helpless? Frozen? Odin was looking at Chaos, waiting for him to follow. Vincent gave Chaos a giant mental jab, the kind he imagined the demon frequently gave him.

Chaos moved. In a flash he had drawn his weapon, Vincent's beloved Cerberus that had expanded in Chaos' transformation to something both larger and more deadly. He aimed the barrel of Death Penalty inches from Odin's chest.

"No," Chaos said simply.

"A gun?" Odin said, more incredulous than concerned. "Technology, Forste? I'm surprised at you."

"What can I say," Chaos said. "I've evolved."

He fired the weapon, the report deafening inside the dark, ruined reactor. Odin flew back and away, and then vanished. Chaos wheeled and moved himself into a more defensive position, putting his back to a wall and scanning for where Odin may have gone. Vincent had been aware of Odin's unnatural speed; it was some sort of hyperdrive over short distances. But he hadn't known of this invisibility trick. He found himself unsurprised, because _Chaos_ had known. Their thoughts were now moving together in that seamless fusion which was only accessible to them when the fight came, when the barriers of pride and suspicion and just plain orneriness of both were temporarily set aside.

Vincent was also aware from Chaos' Perception ability that Odin was watching them. Expected, and not helpful. Vincent's Precog proved more useful. He didn't need to send the message _LEFT!_" As soon as Vincent knew, Chaos knew, and they jerked away to the left just as something very large and probably sharp sliced through the space where they had been. Chaos fired in the direction of the attack and a bright circle erupted in front of them where the projectile encountered some sort of shield. Not a materia shield; the shot seemed to temporarily disable it. Like a window into the invisible world, a piece of Odin momentarily flashed in that circle, an armored shoulder and piece of a square and deadly serious face. If they could land two shots in the same spot the second might go through.

_Fly! _ The sentiment was simultaneous, and Chaos shot them into the air and spread his wings. He fired at the same time in a wide pattern of likely locations, double tapping each one.

_Got him! _An entire demonic chorus plus Vincent cheered inside their crowded head as another flash ignited and this time they could see a blossom of crimson on one giant bicep. But it wasn't enough to keep Odin from swinging, and pain exploded in Chaos' right calf before they rose out of range. The slice went deep into the muscle and blood flowed freely into his boot, alarming and hot against his skin. Chaos put his concentration to the area, speeding the healing enough to stop the bloodflow.

_Team's on the roof,_ Vincent noted, having heard the tell-tale light thumps

**Clrwd Clrwd! **Galian growled, and Vincent was impressed that the blond had come down so silently that even he didn't hear him. Galian, ever more attentive to smells, must be responding to the scent. Cloud would be coming to help, but Cloud wasn't expecting an invisible opponent.

_We have to get at him before he gets to Cloud. _Vincent thought, broadcasting to everyone inside his head. _Galian, can you smell Odin? Can you track him?_

**Owrngg!**

It took Vincent a moment to understand, but then he got it. Galian thought Odin smelled like oranges.

_Switch with him! _Vincent snapped, but Chaos was already complying, transforming even as he maneuvered to land them atop the bent and sloped surface of a half-fallen I-beam. Four claws scrabbled at the rusty surface as the large blue beast ran back down to floor level, heading right towards the "owrngg" smell. Vincent tried to slow him, since Galian could neither shoot nor see Odin's blade, but Vincent didn't seem to be directing Galian's movements at all.

_Chaos, move! _ Vincent barked once he figured out what the problem was. They couldn't both drive at the same time, and Vincent was the more experienced with Galian's form. But they couldn't get it sorted out between themselves before they found Cloud- bleeding from his shoulder, his rounded shoulder guard split in two and swinging as it hung from one strap. His normally soft and almost pretty lips were set into a line so tight they all but disappeared as he looked from side to side, blade out in front of him, seeking for something to swing at.

Vincent had only a moment to take the scene in and no time to make a decision before Galian leapt into the air and landed square on Odin's invisible back. Odin spun and listed with the weight almost 400 lbs of blue demon stuck to him, but Galian's claws dug in and held firm, Odin's particular shield doing nothing to stop this primitive and organic-based attack. Suddenly, Vincent felt a tingle on the back of his head and down his own black, his precog letting him know something long and narrow was about to strike him there. There was only one way Odin could hit him; a swing over his head towards his own back. He commanded Galian to hook both clawed forelegs over Odin's biceps, slowing down the blow enough to deflect Odin's blade with an easy sideways flick of his horns. Odin spun again and the image of Cloud flashed in and out of view as Cloud tried to figure out how to hit Odin without hitting his own teammate. Then Galian bit down, sinking his teeth up to the gums into Odin's bulky trapezius muscle between shoulder and neck. Hot, thick blood spurted into the beast's mouth and all four demons writhed in the blood-joy, taking Vincent along with them.

And then they were moving, flying through the air backwards in a move so sudden they had no time to react. Odin had done one of those hyperdrive jumps backward, and they hit a jagged wall behind them with Galian's body taking the brunt of the force. Something sickening cracked inside of Galian's head and the world swam.

_Hang on to him,_ Vincent tried to encourage Galian, tried to get him to curl at least one claw, sink it into some soft flesh and keep Odin in place. But he was drifting, changing, and Chaos was coming more forward.

_Fine,_ he thought, his headvoice sounding distant and fuzzy even to himself. _Chaos can sink a claw in, just somebody, anybody, hold him…_

Something warm and wet hit him in the face, then something heavy fell on him, smothering him. He heard gunfire, and then an incongruous sense of lightness that seemed to suck him upward and pull him from the ground.

"Vincent?" Cloud's voice came to him; a snarl went out in response.

"OK, um, Chaos?" Cloud corrected. He was pulling Vincent up under his arm, an arm that was moving about in a disturbing way, changing size and switching between skin, fabric, and fur. Finally one shape solidified, big and solid. It jerked away from him and Chaos stood, towering over Cloud and swaying unsteadily.

"You got him," Chaos said flatly.

Chaos' voice had the same effect on Cloud as it had the one previous occasion he had heard it. It made the hair on the back of Cloud's neck stand on end. It wasn't because the voice was so different from Vincent's; it was because it was so _like_ Vincent's, but at the same time not. Creepy.

"I got him. Cut his head clean off, but then he evaporated," Cloud said, watching with an almost indecent fascination as one of Chaos' wings came forward to wipe the copious amount of Odin'd blood that had sprayed onto his face from the decapitation.

"He went back to the hall," Chaos said. "It's possible he may be re-summoned. We must hurry. Where is the rat, Fuhito?"

"He's loose," Cloud said, as more gunfire erupted, some exploding some bits of concrete around them and making them both duck.

The pair carefully picked their way to sound of the commotion, identifying the blasts of Barret's big gun along with at least one smaller gun. Shouts. Tifa's voice. Vincent wondered if the roof crew were in place.

_**How are you two doing? **_Chaos asked.

_Working on it_ came the terse reply. Apparently they had asked while the pair was busy with their tricky and sensitive task. The girls had to secure the kegs to the roof vents while hanging off of a sloped surface with poor footing. Without dropping the bombs.

Erik ran up to them from behind, having circled around the big donut surrounding the core. "Nyssa's not where we saw her yesterday," he said, making sure to stay on the Cloud side of the pair.

"You are certain?" Chaos asked, not having much faith in the search capabilities of a shoemaker.

"I'm sure," Erik snapped. "In the video she was lying along an outer wall near a two foot wide support pillar. There are only four pillars like that in here and I saw them all. You forget I am an expert of dark tunnels!"

Chaos looked away from the Bridge Keeper's castigation, both he and Vincent annoyed to have been called to task so. They should have remembered.

"Fuhito," Cloud said. "We need him."

The three moved cautiously toward the last sounds of gunfire. They found Tifa standing guard while Barret labored on a piece of machinery behind her.

"Hey," Cloud whispered. "Where's Fuhito?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "He's a slippery little creep."

Barret grunted behind them as a rather large metal bar he was yanking on broke free . "There's no way we're using the dampers. I think the beam has gotten so big it's melted them. Did you get Odin?"

"Yeah, for now," Cloud said, moving slowly along the wall, sword out in front of him. He motioned for the others to fall into a search formation, covering side and back.

_He's close. Can't you smell him?_

_**Yes. But the beam is making an erratic wind in here. I can't localize. He was here; he must have left a scent trail…**_

_Galian-_

Galian's shape took hold and this time Chaos and Vincent switched places smoothly. He trotted forward on all fours, the scent of Fuhito's very footsteps suddenly and glaringly obvious, just like every other smell in the place, many of which even Chaos was unaware of. Like the mold they had been smelling was actually four different varieties, each with their own smell. The mako beam had a smell. Tifa had stepped on a bug on the way in, one of the small brown beetles with furry legs that were all over Midgar now, and the smell of its pungent blood radiated from her right boot sole.

But for now he ignored all these fascinating smells, put his nose near the floor and followed the trail, horned head swinging to and fro. Cloud jumped when Galian came up beside him, blue coarse fur brushing his arm, but he quickly understood and let the beast lead them. Then Galian stopped, took a step back, and looked up. A single shot exploded in their ears and a restrained cry came from their group.

"Tifa!" Cloud leapt to where she had half-fallen and pulled into what he hoped was a protected corner. Blood, almost black in the dim light, oozed through her fingers as she pressed her hands to her thigh. Cloud touched a piece of materia lodged in his blade handle.

"Cure 3," he said. But he didn't feel the power go out of him, and the blood flow from Tifa's wound didn't slow. Cloud wondered if he had mis-cast the Cure, as if maybe he had forgotten how to do a Cure.

Cloud ripped free of his damaged shoulder armor so he could pull his T-shirt over his head, taking care to stay tight to the protective wall, damp and rough against the skin on his back. He wrapped Tifa's thigh in the shirt and tied the ends, pulling tight to keep pressure on the wound as Tifa hissed through her teeth. It was bleeding freely, but he didn't want to put a tourniquet on it if he didn't have to, knowing that a tourniquet could result in limb loss. What he really needed was the damn Cure. He was about to try again when Vincent, suddenly at his side, interrupted him.

"It's no good," Vincent said, "Fuhito must have his box turned on. I don't think he can re-summon Odin while it's on. If he turns it off, and I expect he will, we can feel it. We'll let you know; be ready."

Cloud nodded, trying not to be weirded out that Vincent had just referred to himself as "we". He'd never heard him do that before. Vincent's eyes were also shifting between red and gold, another sign of uncontrolled multiplicity that Cloud found disturbing.

Vincent, having bargained with Chaos that his smaller frame was the one better designed for sniper hunting, darted across the wide hallway to the another shielded corner holding Barret and Erik. He scanned the area above them, full of catwalks and balconies. There were a million places for Fuhito to hide up there.

Long moments passed while the men scanned the shadows above them, Vincent wishing Barret were less of a noisy breather. Although he was grateful he didn't have to sleep next to him, the man probably snor-

There was a small motion and Vincent fired almost the same instant, the round pinging off something metallic. He gave a curt hand signal to Barret and the man with a Tommy gun for an arm peppered the area with a controlled bursts. The echo rang for several seconds and they waited again. Nothing. Either Fuhito had some pretty impressive nerves and was hiding up there, or he had moved location. The only way to find out was to go up there.

Vincent was rudely and roughly shoved aside when Chaos took form. He had almost forgotten he wasn't in charge today, and it chafed him all over again. They rose easily to the level of the catwalks and hovered.

_Try left_ Vincent said. Fuhito was up here; he could feel it.

Chaos moved left, occasionally holding or stopping on a railing, stabilizing himself between wing flaps that couldn't always spread out to their full span. Another shot came and the round went through some of the wing skin, an annoying but not bothersome wound to a creature whose wings were already so chewed up. Instead Chaos smiled, because the muzzle flash gave away the shooters position.

Chaos fired.

Chaos missed.

He missed by a wide margin. In the background Vincent was flabbergasted.

_Your aim is awful! Let me drive!_

_**No. You always drive.**_

_And when I do the shooting I can at least hit what I'm aiming at!_

Chaos grunted and let Vincent come forward, but he didn't move completely aside. They were both squeezed into the command center of their psyche,and while they wrangled Fuhito slipped into another section of catwalk. Vincent fired, but too late.

_**You missed!**_

_Shut up._

They flew forward and into the catwalks, scrambling fast and morphing back into the smaller, human form. He could hear Fuhito now, noisy now that he was moving fast, both men crawling over and under ruined frameworks, jumping away nimbly when footholds gave way and sent metal crashing to the floor.

Vincent ducked four shots, and then quite suddenly he was himself again. His own, comforting control had snapped back into place. Fuhito had turned off his materia nullifying machine, meaning he was about to launch an attack, or maybe summon. A particular summon.

"Cloud, now! Cure!" Vincent yelled. It gave away his position, and he moved quickly away while hoping Cloud could hear him. And mind him.

"Cloud! Cure!" Barret relayed the message to Vincent's relief. Barret was both closer to Cloud and louder than Vincent could ever think of being.

Vincent slid along a narrow piece of rail, waiting for that preemptive feeling of an attack, and then finally saw Fuhito slipping along ahead. Vincent took careful aim and fired. The round flashed as it disintegrated on a full-blown materia shield.

_**I**_** hατε ****MДTERIД**_ shields_** grRRnh!**

At least that was something they could all agree on.

Fuhito looked at him and smiled coolly as something large swirled between them.

_Odin _Vincent sighed with disgust and fatigue. He pulled Chaos up, the red demon responsive and under his control now. Then he stepped aside in his mind, at least half way, voluntarily giving Chaos partial reign.

_Just let me do the shooting, _Vincent said.

_**Deal**_

They flew up above Odin's immediate range, watching as the swirling solidified . He came into their world from the inside out, bones, then flesh, then skin. His clothing was last, and it shimmered, partly translucent on only half of his body, and there it stopped. Odin's skin was obviously greenish now that the expanse of it was visible stretched as it was over his bulging, muscular frame. He wasn't fully materialized, not fully functional, but he managed to turn his head upward toward Chaos and give his former General and evil stare.

_Something wrong, _ Vincent could feel his control over Chaos dithering in and out of effect. Whatever technology Fuhito was using to affect materia fields was acting erratically, maybe malfunctioning.

_**Which means his shield might be down**_**. **Chaos dove straight for Fuhito. There was resistance as they hit the partially functional shield, a unique burning/freezing sort of pain that caused his muscles to spasm and teeth to clamp shut, impeding swallowing and even breathing. For a panicky moment it seemed they might be stuck forever, right in the shield, and then with a sudden sucking feeling they were through. Chaos half grabbed, half fell on the smaller scientist. Fuhito's gun, unfired and forgotten for his attention to his misbehaving box, flew from his hand to clatter on railings and platforms below. The box flew from his grip to where it slid along the platform they were standing on. Both dove for it, and when their combined weight hit near the edge of the platform the whole support broke free, hinged only by a point somewhere behind them. It swung wildly, dumping them off the edge. Chaos grabbed onto one rail as they fell, unable to spread his wings as Fuhito had a death grip around one of them. He saw the box, in the air, made a grab for it, and with one tick of the end of a claw it fell into the beam where it disappeared with a tiny hissing sound.

_**Maasca! **_Chaos swore and fought to get control over Fuhito's limbs, pinning him with long and powerful arms. Then he clamped onto the back of the man's neck with a none-too gentle bite and dropped with his prisoner to the lower level. Vincent brought his own form back and spat off to the side, trying to get the revolting bits of skin off his own teeth. He spit again; Fuhito wasn't going anywhere, he had his claw hand pinched deeply into Fuhito's shoulder, and Barret and Erik had just come up and leveled their weapons at him. Cloud and Tifa had joined them, Vincent relieved to see Tifa walking on her injured leg, albeit hitching into a limp when she put her weight on it.

"Where's Nyssa?!" Erik demanded, looking fierce and ill-used, covered in sweat and dirt as he was. Vincent supposed they all looked equally bad. Fuhito ignored him.

"You can't stop it now," Fuhito said, addressing Vincent. "The beam is too big to shut down. And now, without the _Isolator_," Fuhito gestured toward where the box had been vaporized, "None of us can go back to affect change for the better. Congratulations, you may have trapped the world into repeating the past over and over again until the time itself ends."

"Don't try to lay your madness anywhere else but where it belongs!" Vincent hissed, shaking Fuhito until his glasses, somehow still attached to his face, half-jumped off at a rakish angle.

"Where's Nyssa!" Erik repeated, pressing the barrel of his gun to Fuhito's cheek.

Fuhito seemed to consider, then motioned as best he could under Vincent's crippling grip. Vincent gave him a shove and they moved in the indicated direction with Fuhito under close watch. They walked half way around the donut surrounding the beam before stopping in front of a large metal plate. Vincent recognized it as the sliding panel in front of the disposal shoot. The garbage area.

Fuhito stood, saying nothing more. Barret grabbed onto the handle, a sizable pipe bent into a shallow U-shape, and pulled.

Vincent was close enough to know what he needed to know without going inside. His nose may not have been on par with Galian's, but it was sensitive enough. The woman was piled haphazardly in a corner, her legs twisted at an unnatural angle, one limp and useless arm stretched towards them on the dirty floor.

Erik ducked into the five-foot high shoot and crouched over the crumpled figure. He gave her shoulder a small shake. "Nyssa!" he said, rolling her gently until her head lay face up in his lap.

Still limber, Vincent noticed- no rigor yet. Probably dead less than four hours, but dead still the same. Even the small town shoemaker could tell that now– there was no movement in her body, no breath, no sign of the subtle yet undeniable force of pulse. Erik lowered his head on top of his wife's and let out a slow, keening sob.

"Too late," Fuhito mused. "Like all things on this timeline, too, too late."

Vincent turned his narrowed eyes at Fuhito, and those flashing brown eyes held his, steady and defiant.

"Would you blame me for all the ways of the world, Vincent Valentine? I did not kill her. The illness that was eating her finally prevailed."

"No," Vincent said, his voice only a hoarse whisper. "You only let her die, frightened and alone in a place far from her home. Then you dumped her body here like unwanted _garbage_."

His words seemed to have no effect of Fuhito, but they stoked the flame of his own anger. For a moment he let himself indulge in a violent seething for the parasite in his grasp, and that moment was enough. Fatigue from the fight and the repeated shape shifting had slackened his control much as Fuhito's Isolator had. Or, perhaps, it was simply a matter of not wanting that control.

Hellmasker's transformation had always been the quickest of all his demons, and somewhere deep down he always suspected this was because it was this demon, the cruelest and coldest of the four, who was the most like his own darkest self. The killer, pure and deadly in his desires. For a moment Hellmasker merely loomed until Fuhito's face finally showed a reaction. It was confusion, followed by a rapid percolation of fear. Something vaporous oozed from what had been Vincent, now a silent, hulking figure with face completely obscured by a flat, white mask. The emitted aura from the new being was used to stun his prey where it stood, unless that prey had the strength of will and mind to break free of it. Fuhito apparently did, for he made a sudden bolt for freedom.

But he was too slow.

Hellmasker reached out and snatched Fuhito by his thick, brown hair, ripping a good chunk of the scalp free as he viciously jerked the scientist's head backward. He then latched one arm around the narrow torso and dug strong fingers into the soft underbelly, hooking under ribs that cracked with the force. He slammed the body to the dirt-caked concrete, then, with a quick swipe past a sheath on his belt, produced a knife with a curved blade on one side and deadly scalloping on the other. He plunged this into Fuhito's chest, hitting the heart right though the breast bone. Blood erupted in a fountain when Hellmasker jerked the blade free, spraying dark lines across the masked face. Then he picked up the body and threw it into the beam where it hissed little more than the box had.

Vincent stood alone in the blood-spattered spot, Hellmasker having retreated as quickly as he had come.

_You are never coming out again,_ Vincent said.

**. ИOT EVEЯYOИE IS UИHДPPY ШITH ME ДS YOU ДЯE**.

Vincent looked around at a mixture of emotions pointed in his direction, sometimes more than one on the same face. There was horror. But also other things. Satisfaction on Erik's face. Hard resolve on Cloud's. And Seri had at some point joined them. Vincent stared at her, confused. She came closer and surveyed the blood pattern and the blood left sprayed on his face. She dug into a pocket and handed him a cloth, then spat on the floor where Fuhito had died.

"Good enough for him," she said. Then she looked into his eyes for a moment, and he realized she was trading a thought with Hellmasker of all things.

**.YOU'ЯE ШELCOME.**

Vincent was about to reprimand her, but stopped. Mariteean resistance fighter. Victim of torture and rape. Family killed, country burned. What business did he have to negate her anger at the world?

"How did you get down here?" he asked instead.

"I found stairs."

Vincent rolled his eyes. Stairs. So much for ropes and long drop jumps from that hole in the ceiling.

"The kegs are set; both of us didn't need to be on the roof and I flipped Yuffie for who could come down. She's pissed."

Vincent nodded and turned to Erik, still crouched by his dead wife.

"Does she have her key?" Vincent asked. "Her temple key?"

Erik stared at him, confused.

"There may be a way for me to stop the machine if I can get back into the temple overhead."

Erik leaned down and very gently moved Nyssa's collar, feeling around the heartbreakingly cool skin of her neck for the cord and key that always hung there.

"It's not here," Erik said. "That bastard probably took…"

He stopped short and looked at Vincent, then into the large green beam. Everyone looked into the beam. 'That bastard' had gone into the beam, along with any key he might have had. Vincent also looked into the beam, then shut his eyes.

"Shit," he said softly.


	20. The End

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Final Fantasy or Vincent. I just abuse them both.

**A/N: Finally, this is the last chapter. There is a rather long epilogue containing all the smut I restrained from writing in this chapter. I thought I would publish it in adultfanfiction because it's getting a little wild for this site, but their editor is so limited I couldn't figure out how to format the demons talking. So it's here, it's called 'The Winding Down'. Just click on the author link to find it.  
**

"We still have the kegs," Seri said softly, interrupting Vincent's sullen indulgence in his disappointment.

He turned to where Erik was still seated on the floor, meaning to offer to help move Nyssa's body back to the ship, so that he may follow whatever tradition his people had concerning the dead. But he never got the chance. A pale glow covered her form and lifted her even as she started to break apart. Glittering, colored specs of light swirled up and away from her until there was no more of her left. The glistening threads spiraled around the beam, coming ever closer until they joined, each with such a small sound they blended into a continuous hum until none were left.

"What happened," Erik asked, looking at each of them in turn, dazed.

Tifa knelt down beside him, though it obviously pained her leg to do so. "Her essence had already gone into the Lifestream. Her body just followed. It happens sometimes, where mako concentrations are high, where the Lifestream dips very close to the living."

Erik stared in new wonder at the great green beam. "It was beautiful. Nyssa would have liked it, don't you think?"

Tifa nodded, responding not so much to the question that she couldn't possibly have the an answer to, but to his need to be reassured.

Vincent inhaled and exhaled twice in the silence, counting the respectful ten seconds typically required for such a time before speaking.

"Seri, you said there were stairs to the roof?"

Seri nodded and led them down a hallway that only appeared blocked by a fallen piece of wall, and up stairs that required only one quadrupedal scramble. Squinting into the sudden sunlight of the roof they were accosted by a small, impatient ninja girl.

"'bout time," Yuffie said, jumping down from a large, rusting air conditioning unit. She looked over their group, still annoyed for having been left on the roof. "Where's the hostage lady?"

Erik's head dipped and he stared at the curved, sloping surface under his feet. The rest of the group gave Yuffie a scornful look, and Vincent shook his head.

"Oh," she said, her face flushing.

Vincent hopped up to the ledge where one keg had been strapped. They had made a guess for where the kegs should be placed to do the most damage based on an aerial photo Cid had taken of the damaged roof. Neither had good footing near them; this one only a ledge, a sloped ledge no less. The whole roof was curved and sloped, consisting mostly of large pipes and domed sections. Seri, thinking of how the maintenance men at school were always "on the roof", wondered what maintenance men for the reactor must have been like. Mountain goats, maybe. Or something like Vincent. She watched him and wondered how even he managed not to slip with those pointy, metal boots.

_**Special, rubbery bottoms.**_

Seri grimaced a little that she had let Chaos read her thoughts again, or maybe sent them his way. Vincent gave her a small, sideways scowl and she shrugged her shoulders at him. But at least she was starting to recognize a pattern; she had been wondering about Vincent. When she wondered about Vincent, Chaos answered. It was weird, but maybe now she could work on controlling it.

_Just stop thinking about Vincent,_ she thought to herself, then responded to her own thoughts: _Good luck with that._

Seri groaned a little and pressed her fingers to her eyelids, feeling a little crazy with her own self-talk plus demons talking in her head. She started to wonder again what it was like for Vincent and pulled her mind back sharply, groaning a little again.

"You OK?" Cloud asked.

She opened her eyes to see his startling bright blues rather close to her. She took in his face, honest and pure looking despite the grime and blood on him.

"Vincent's making me crazy," she blurted out.

Oddly enough this did not surprise Cloud at all.

"Yeah, he's good at that." Cloud smiled at her, then squinted as wind and noise from the rotors of an airship assaulted their group. Cid had seen the commotion on the roof and aborting his circling pattern to come in for pickup.

"Let's light these!" Vincent hollered over the noise. "The rest of you back on the ship!"

"You go on, we got a method!" Yuffie hollered, giving Vincent a little shove out of her way. She and Seri both took up a position next to their own keg and signaled one another that their lighters, lighters donated from cid's giant collection of lighters, were in fact lit. Then, with a series of hand gestures, each lit their fuse at the same time. Both women ran for the rope ladder and climbed like mad for the lower deck. The others had already climbed up ahead of them, except for Cloud, who had opted for one of the dropped single lines and was using only his arms to ascend. Vincent tsked at Cloud's method, not because he thought Cloud was showing off, but because he knew Cloud had always been a piss-poor rope climber and it appeared he still hadn't learned to use his legs on the single rope. The blonde was just lucky his arms were stout enough to compensate. Vincent had the opposite problem – his clawed hand was poor at gripping a rope. He jumped and grabbed the other single line anyway, so as not to disturb the girls on the rope ladder. He wrapped one leg, fireman fashion, and shimmied up to the rail, where Cloud glared at him briefly for having beaten him to the deck.

The ship had already moved off enough to be clear while they were coming aboard and they all stood near the rail, staring into the mesmerizing green column, paler than it had been in the gloom of the reactor but still shimmering in the broad daylight. They breathed slow, counting. Yuffie and Seri had lit the long fuses, the 30 second fuses, and they waited.

Two bright flashes erupted, almost simultaneously on the middle of the structure, followed quickly by a single booming sound. Seri and Yuffie high-fived one another. The combined explosion engulfed the entire top of the reactor in a giant dust ball, and moments later they could see the whole upper section falling inward onto the beam. The translucent jade column wavered, flickered, then reasserted itself as if nothing had happened. They could feel the dust from the explosion in the air now, taste it grinding between their teeth. As the dust cloud settled their hearts dropped along with it.

"So that's it then," Tifa said. "We lose at last." A small, bitter smile crept to her lips. It was a relief, almost. During all the fighting they had done they had always half-expected to fail. Here the defeat finally was. "I guess we go back repeat the whole damn thing." She was thinking about Denzel and Marlene, how they would never get their chance to succeed or fail in life, and how unfair that was.

"Well, hell," Barret said, looking out over the Midgar ruins. "Maybe it'll turn out better."

The corollary immediately occurred to all of them, but only one would say it.

"Maybe it'll be worse," Yuffie said, then immediately clamped her mouth shut. She slunk back from the rail. The others probably wouldn't have believed it, but she moslty regretted her mouthy outbursts. She just didn't seem to be able to help herself.

"Or maybe the machine won't work at all," Barret offered.

It was a hopeful statement, but a course of action that relied on chance. For the people on the deck of the airship, covered in dirt, wind, and blood, waiting on chance did not sit well with any of them. Vincent's mind was desperately searching for an alternative plan, some way to get through that temple door, maybe. It was hard to believe they needed another plan; they started with three and burned through them all. They, _he_ had blown them all. Maybe they could have blocked the beam with the mechanics available or the explosion if he had brought them in sooner. He had sent the only remaining key into the beam in a fit of emotional abdication, not to mention the whole failing to nullify the machine when he had the chance. The image of Fuhito's box, the isolator, tipping off his finger into the beam replayed in his head. He couldn't even travel back along with the time shift and try to help things out.

_**I don't think it would help. **_Chaos was quiet, somber.

Vincent remembered their conversation before they went to the reactor. _The Planet? It's endangered by the machine?_

_**It's quaking all around us.**_

Vincent defocused his physical vision and forced his mind to be quiet. He imagined his body dissolving, like a sugar cube dropped into water, reaching out until his own spirit merged with the Planet's in a synchronous vibration. It thrummed all around him, the over-anxious tremor of something less substantial than air but far more pervasive. He glanced over at Cloud; the mako-loaded warrior was practically rapt with it, staring, paralyzed.

"Blue," Seri said. "Blue may be spent inside the line, starve the machine"

Vincent, alarmed, grabbed Seri's shoulders and turned her toward him. She was already ice-blue, her eyes mirrored and blind-looking.

"...a small sacrifice," she continued, and Vincent gave her a strong shake.

"Don't you even think about it! You are not going into that beam!"

She didn't seem to hear him.

"Seri! We'll find another way-"

But he had no chance to finish before his arms were yanked away from her and pinned to his side. Except nobody had grabbed him; he was being restrained from the _inside_, he could feel all four of his demons cooperating, holding him in place while he struggled and thrashed without a single movement to his physical body. Seri turned away from him in what looked like slow motion, and while he stood there, rigid and useless, she stepped one foot on the rail and was over. She fell, everyone around him yelped in surprise, and then there was a collective gasp as they saw her, gliding like a bullet towards the beam on two tiny blue wings, not enough to fly with but enough to glide, glide while losing altitude. The whole team watched and held their breath as she fell towards the column, barely sliding into the base of the beam before she hit the ground. She disappeared into the green light with the barest flash of light.

"Vince!" Barret hollered, "Why didn't you go after her? You could have caught her!"

Vincent, who had been immobile and forced to watch the whole thing out of the corner of his eye, was finally loosed, but almost completely overcome by the biggest thing that had ever hit his precog.

"Cid, move this thing!" Cloud roared, running to the cockpit area as if could somehow physically help accelerate the ship.

Vincent looked up to the source of the problem – the temple, visible now and shading them from the sun, was coming down, fast. The ship jerked forward, almost toppling the lot of them over the rear rail. They raced away from the reactor as the huge bottom of the thing, almost a mile on a side, grew steadily closer. Another two seconds and they were just slipping out from under it as it crashed into the ground, blocks of stone exploding out if the collapse and chasing after the airship. The airship turned ubruptly upward to clear the cloud of dust that shot out and up from the immense, new pile of rock.

Higher now, they stared down at the destruction. Vincent tried to piece together what had happened, but he couldn't think for the riot that had exploded inside his head.

_**What have you done?!? **_Chaos roared, his voice rising above the others.

_**Why didn't you tell us she was going to jump into the beam?!? We can't see the outside world that clearly from here!! When you're driving it's your responsibility to keep track! **_

Vincent dove for the railing, but three sets of hands jerked him back. Barrett had slung one arm around his neck and held him in a suffocating choke hold and both Tifa and Yuffie had latched on to him, sticking their feet to the rail to keep him from going over. He pulled again, but now Cloud had grabbed onto him as well. Unable to command any demon while in a state of complete demon anarchy they succeeded in pulling him away from the rail.

"Vincent, stop!" One of Clouds arms wrapped more tightly around him. "She's gone, she went into the beam!"

Vincent struggled more fiercely, his elbow contacting with Tifa's ribs. Somebody kicked his feet out from under him and he vaguely felt his body hit the deck. But what was happening to his body was barely noticeable next to the turmoil within. Every demon was roaring at the top of its lungs, Galian wailing like a pitiful, wounded animal, Hellmasker throwing unbelievably obscene threats his way, Gigas raging in his idiot language. But Chaos was by far the worst, letting him know in ear-splitting volume who's fault this all was.

_**We wouldn't have cooperated with her if you had just told us what was going on! Valentine! Why didn't you speak?!?!**_

Why hadn't he spoken? Vincent supposed it was habit. He never explained or bargained with his demons. He ordered. He controlled. He suppressed and resented them as anyone would who was forced to live in a house fit for one with four uninvited intruders.

"What's wrong with him?" Barrett said, laying his full bulk on Vincent in an attempt to still him.

Tifa and Cloud shook their heads in confusion. Vincent's golden left hand broke free and clipped Yuffe above her right eye.

"OW, dammit!" She yelled, "Don't we have anything to knock him out?"

Tifa managed to reach back into her bag, grabbing for her materia. "Maybe a sleep spell."

But she never had the chance to use it. Vincent wanted above all things to escape the howling din inside his own head, to put himself beyond the pain of loss and failures, both old and new. He knew how to do that; he had done it before, put himself a sleep that Cloud should never have woken him from the first place. He stilled his mind until it felt as if he was sinking into the cold black-blue depths of the ocean. The voices faded. He could go deeper this time; he was sure of it. He could go all the way down. The velvet hand of darkness pressed him deeper and the pain slipped away. Like Odu-in's desire, all things to him were as if undone. His body lost all feeling, his mind all knowing, and the very end of his consciousness, a sweet melody guided him home.

ccccccccccccccccc

_**Wake up.**_

_**I mean it.**_

Chaos thrashed and bit and raged from the inside. He knew he was causing pain to the host body, but still Vincent Valentine would not stir.

_**We can wake him together up if you will help**_

**.GO SCЯДTCH, CHДOS. **

**«mε liқε him αςlεερ»**

There was nothing but a snoring noise from Galian's quarter.

_**Lazy bastards! **_

Chaos had already tried starting a row with them. He knew that was painful to Vincent but in this case it wasn't enough, and it had left them all tired.

_**Vincent Valentine, wake up! It's important!**_

cccccc

Seri leaned her forehead against the window in the small room where the others had laid Vincent's inert form. The window was cool against her forehead, but the rest of her skin felt singed, raw from her time in the beam despite having cures laid on her. The clean sweats and long sleeved tee-shirt Tifa had loaned her chafed at her armpits and along her waist despite the soft fabric. Chafed the way the events of those last few moments rubbed at the edges of her memory. She couldn't come to terms with what she knew she had done. Leapt from the rail an airship. Flew, or rather glided, right into a fiery green pillar. What in Gaia made her think she could, or should, do any of those things?

"No change?"

Seri turned to see Cloud had stepped silently into the room.

"None," she said, looking down at a pair of scissors Cloud had in his hand. They were a pathetic pair; the kind that gets left behind in a kitchen drawer after everyone has 'borrowed' the decent ones.

"Oh," Cloud said, noticing the path of her gaze, "I was trimming houseplants." He gave the scissors a couple of snips in the air for emphasis and smiled sadly.

Seri tried to smile back but instead her lower lip quivered. She pursed her lips to still them, but instead the emotion re-routed itself as liquid that brimmed in her eyes.

"Hey, hey, it's OK," Cloud reached out tentatively and she fell into his arms, her face buried into his shoulder. Once in this posture he carefully wrapped his arms around her back, now that he was sure it was expected. A small strange sob vibrated against his collarbone.

"I'mb srry," Seri mumbled into his shirt. After a few more sniffles she looked up.

"I never meant for this to happen to him. And now I can't even tell him I'm sorry!" She looked over at Vincent; he looked dead. His friends had explained to her that Vincent might lie like this for years, maybe forever, and she should probably leave, go back to her life. They had seen it before. They would take care of him.

"Hey, no, this isn't your fault," Cloud said gently. "He knew the score as well as all of us."

Seri shook her head violently. "You don't understand. I tricked him. I reached out and spoke to his demons. I lied to them and told them Vincent was trying to hurt me. They reared up together and held him long enough for me jump. It was horrible to feel them, how fast they moved, how hard they pinned him. Even if he wakes, how could he forgive something like that?"

Cloud looked at her thoughtfully. "Well, to be honest I don't think Vincent's much given to sharing blame. He likes it too well for himself."

Seri smiled a little at this, pressing one eye with her fingertips to keep it from tearing.

"You can't... talk to any of his demons now?" Cloud asked, softly, tiptoeing around the strange connection she had to Vincent's demons, to Vincent. In the last few hours since their return Seri had explained the last, missing piece of the puzzle- the one regarding herself and why she could communicate with Chaos, and why her own strange elements had been able to shut beam down.

Seri shook her head. "I've tried to talk to them – there's been nothing. Not since this catatonic state." She turned to look at Vincent's prone form, then laid her face again into Cloud's shoulder. "I'm quite in love with him, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"And his demons,"

Cloud nodded as if this too were the most natural thing in the world even though in reality it was one of the creepier things he'd heard. But who was he to say? He'd had plenty of creepy in his own life.

cccccccccc

_**I'm not going away, Vincent. Wake up!**_

In dark, sweet, seclusion Vincent drifted, dreaming. His dreams were not necessarily good ones, but in this state they too were blissfully muted. He saw his mother on the day before she died, young and beautiful and anxious as her hand gripped his small one a little too firmly while they watched the militia parade past in their worn, mismatched uniforms. He re-lived his first kill, the thrill and terror if it, the surprise from the amount of blood. In thin and wavering vision he saw Lucretia's form drop to the floor, him powerless to help from his mako-tube prison. He watched Seri and Erik running up the temple steps, laughing; immediately followed by Erik sobbing over his dead wife.

Chaos could see the dreams too. His species did not dream the way humans did, assuming Vincent was typical for humans, and he always found Vincent's dreams astonishingly colorful and rather addictive. It required a force of will not to be distracted by them and be lulled into sleep himself. But instead he turned his attention outward, struggling to understand the outside world without the help of Vincent's eyes and limited use of ears and nose. He could hear Seri talking, and Cloud was there. He could also feel vaguely what was going on.

_**You guys want Seri to run off with the Blondie?**_

Two beings, more or less intelligent, turned their attention to him and a third woke up from his nap.

_**She's in his arms now, I'm sure of it. She'll run off with him and Vincent will never see her again. **_

Slowly they coalesced, each also trying to reach out and decide if it was a trick, and ultimately deciding it might be true. With the cooperation he needed, Chaos led and assault of never before seen force on Vincent's form. Each shocked his nervous system in their own way, and all of Vincent's muscles threatened to cramp on him. Vincent was forced to rouse himself in order to reassert conscious relaxation. But he wanted to go back to his dreams. He could hear Cloud... had he been dreaming of Cloud? Cloud certainly wasn't his first choice topic. The wave a pain hit him again and he cracked one eye open, enough to see a hazy image – two people, one was certainly Cloud, either that or a guy with a chocobo toupee, and in his arms was a woman, but not Tifa – not enough hair, not enough boobs. Something about the image was just so _wrong_, and an inner impulse was pushing him to do something about it.

"What are you doing, Strife?"

Vincent managed to sit up, but the pain in his head was amazing. He was actually seeing stars over his vision. He stood, shaky, pulling his body back under control as he finally focused on Seri.

"Vincent," she said, quietly, as if she could sense the hangover-like throbbing in his skull. She stepped toward him, reached out, then stopped, disturbed by his unfocused state.

"Just a dream," he said flatly, staring past Seri. Then he jerked suddenly.

"Arch!" Vincent looked down sharply to where a pain assaulted the side of his ribcage. There was something offensive in Cloud's hand. "Did you just stab me with a scissor?"

"Not dreaming," Cloud said, and walked out of the room.

Vincent, blinking now and more focused, looked back to Seri. She gently tugged on a lock of his hair.

"Not dreaming," she repeated.

The pain in his head drained away, clearing his mind but leaving an empty confusion in its wake. He heard squeal from the lower level followed by the rapid thumping of small feet racing up the stair.

"Vinnie!" Yuffie bolted into the room and grabbed Vincent tightly around the waist, causing his arms to reflexively lift up and away from her as though she might be covered with something sticky. The rest of the team slipped through the door behind her, and Tifa stepped gently forward and slung and arm around Vincent's neck, ignoring his stiffening and small jerk. Sid and Barrett contented themselves with a friendly nod, not convinced that even in this groggy state Vincent wouldn't try to shoot one of them just for being too close to him.

"OK, enough! Enough! Off!" Vincent said, struggling to peel Yuffie's arms from his ribcage. "And stay away from me with those scissors, Strife."

Cloud smiled happily at Vincent. In fact they were all smiling broadly, six of them at least. Erik, the grief of the newly bereft making him more of an outsider than home address ever could, hung near the back with a bittersweet smile that touched only his lips.

Vincent looked around them in amazement. They had all been here, waiting for him. They had not locked him in a cell (of a coffin) somewhere and left him, though they probably should have. And even he couldn't deny the warm feeling rising up through is chest to catch in his throat. These were his friends. And they were all smiling at him while he stared back at them, dazed.

He looked last at Seri, the one who confused him the most, the one who was always confusing him the most, if even just by her very presence.

"How-" he stopped and struggled to make a complete sentence. Something worthy of the emotional moment at hand.

"Why aren't you dead?"

Seri stared at him for a moment, mouth agape, until slowly a smile spread across her face. "I was wrong. About the interpretation of a Blue needing to be "spent" to close the stream. It should have been more like... "applied".

Vincent frowned at her, looking skeptical.

"It's a simple error," she protested. "Translation can be tricky! The words are actually very close in the Cetra language, like the difference between... "used" and "used up". Anyway, I was locked in this giant bubble like thing when the beam extinguished. And then the temple fell on me."

"How?" He was doing it again. He forced his thick tongue to move, his brain to work. "And how did you get here?" He looked over at the rest of his team. That still would have been a hell of a lot of rock to move and they didn't have any equipment specific for moving rock. They couldn't have done it by hand quick enough to extract and cure up a human squashed under the rubble, even if the beam or the planet or whatever had provided some buffer for her to survive. Nobody answered him, and Seri was looking at him oddly. He was getting the distinct impression he was supposed to know something he didn't.

"Chaos came for me," Seri said.

"Without me?" Vincent's mind reeled, scanning back through memory, bits of nightmares for something that might indicate a memory lapse he could recover.

_**I tried to tell you**_

_Tell me what?_

"Well, he took your body along, but it's unclear where you were. He dug me out. I couldn't hear him, you know, in my head like normal, and I couldn't understand much of what he said. It seems he doesn't speak our language. I think he needs your help for both communication methods."

_You don't speak Common? I thought we had been using the same language._

_**So did I. **_

"You went completely unconscious when the beam went out," Cloud said, continuing the story. "Well, after some struggling." He gave Yuffie a little touch to the mark over her right eye to make sure the cure had sealed up the gash completely. "You were out for several minutes. Then Chaos exploded off the deck and dove into the fallen temple. You don't remember?"

Vincent shook his head slowly. "I didn't know it was possible for him to take form while I'm unconscious. Maybe he had help; I used to also think it wasn't possible for my demons to work cooperatively. But apparently they can, and will..."

Vincent frowned at Seri and she leaned away from him a bit.

"...for you. And not just to save you from a pile of rocks. You rallied them against me, to let you jump from the ship," Vincent said, his voice cold.

"Uh... sorry?" Seri scrunched up her face, wondering if it was even worth giving and account of her own out-of-control mental state at the time.

Vincent sighed and rolled his eyes. "I guess I have to be grateful someone saved the day. And I deserved it; a right mess I made of things."

"Oh, you can quit that shit right now," Barrett growled. "We all know that plans never go off as planned."

"Maybe Seri was supposed to extinguish the beam," Cloud volunteered. "You brought her here."

_**And she would never had been strong enough to hear the Planet call if you hadn't brought her to Aasgard and strengthened Freyja's component.**_

"You were called by the planet? To dive into the beam?" Vincent asked.

"I guess so, I certainly had no idea I could do something like that." Seri made a small flapping with her hands, imitating diminutive wings.

_**Mmmm, the little wings certainly were a nice surprise **_Chaos purred,

_Down, boy._

"Yeah, well, fuck Vincent, we came through it alright," Cid said, chewing on an unlit cigarette. "Well done."

"Yes, thank-you," Eriks voice, softer and somber came from the back. "For everything."

The room stilled to absorb him, a man with enough grace to be grateful despite his loss. A melancholy air might have settled on them all but for Yuffie's complete opposition to such things.

"Anyway, Vinnie, you're still our hero!" she blurted out, and to Vincent's surprise and horror Yuffie jumped up and kissed him; not a peck on the cheek, but a full smacker right on the lips. He stood, stunned, mouth hanging slightly open as heat crept into his face. Tifa and Seri, standing on either side of him, took advantage of his distress and planted a kiss on each cheek, laughing.

"Hey Vincent," Cloud teased, "I don't think I've ever seen you blush before."

"Yeah Vinnie, you look like your cape!"

The gunman had in fact reddened ever so slightly, he could feel the heat on his cheeks and for some reason it made him feel silly rather than strictly self-conscious. Giddy was actually closer to the truth, and he bowed his head and flicked his collar up to hide his face. But it was a moment too late.

"Well fuck me," said Cid, "I think that is an actually full blown smile from Mr. Valentine!"

"Teeth showing and everything!" Yuffie yelled, suddenly a ball of energy. "I saw them, I saw them! They _are _pointed!!"

Vincent immediately pursed his lips and ran his tongue over his front teeth, the two pointed canines included. Then he decided the hell with it and grinned predatorily at his friends, looking more fierce than friendly as he fully exposed Chaos' permanent residuals jutting down just a tad longer and sharper than was reasonable.

"Damn," Tifa said, staring at the pointy canines. "I owe Yuffie ten gil."

"Well, I kind of cheated," Yuffie admitted. "I'd seen them before, when he snarled at me once."

Vincent stowed his teeth and thought maybe he would try smiling back, a small one, a little less stoicism than usual but without the pointy teeth. What happened instead was his face contracted in pain because at that same moment his mental landscape exploded into an intense melee.

"Whoa, whoa, what's up?" Cloud neared, hand poised to touch Vincent's shoulder where it hovered uncertainly in the air.

Vincent marveled at the sudden change in the room. How sensitive humans were to the smallest emotional signal; it was one of the reasons he kept his face so controlled. He tried again for that small smile and this time it took, assuaging the tension in the room despite the fact he was faking it.

"Just a ruckus inside my head," he said. "They fight."

"Your demons?" Cloud ventured. They were learning more about Vincent in the last couple days than they had their entire time together fighting Sephiroth and Meteor, and while he didn't want to push his luck he wasn't sure how often opportunities like this would come along, if ever.

"I don't know what gets them started. But I know what makes them stop." Vincent turned toward Seri. "Would you mind?"

She smiled widely, showing all of her not-quite-straight and definitely non-demonic teeth.

"Yeah, I can do that."

She thought for a moment, then started a song, something different, an ancient folk melody in Common rather than Maritean, but still adding that peculiar modulation to it.

_Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine  
I'll taste your strawberries; I'll drink your sweet wine  
A million tomorrows shall all pass away  
'ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today_

Vincent's face visibly relaxed, his small smile became real and natural as every line melted away from his face, leaving his companions marveling at the image of youth and maybe even the trace of innocence that set up camp there.

"Thank-you," he said overwhelmed with a sudden gratitude and affection for them all. "All of you."

"Hey, I know this song!" Yuffie said, and jumped in with a clear soprano counterpoint to Seri's low, rough tones.

_I'll be a dandy, and I'll be a rover  
You'll know who I am by the songs that I sing  
I'll feast at your table; I'll sleep in your clover  
Who cares what the morrow shall bring_

"I didn't know Yuffie could sing," Cloud whispered to Tifa.

"Of course she can; she's good!" Tifa kissed Cloud on the cheek, and Cloud, for the moment, forgot entirely to be nervous about it. And so did she. She laughed and grabbed hands, pulling people around in a slow kind of dance until the whole room was moving and others started humming as they caught on to the melody, even if they didn't know the words.

_I won't be tormented by yesterday's sorrows  
I can't let the pain of the past rule my days  
This morning I found you asleep in the meadow  
And I'll be your love for today_

"I think this is OK," Vincent said softly the next time he passed near Seri, his lips enticingly close to her ear. He felt, maybe for the first time since he had woken in this new world with his new self, accepted. He had been given a chance for the past and ultimately chose the present. People he loved had forgiven him his errors, and still wanted to be with him. They even managed not to shriek and run when passed near him and touched his cloak and it touched back.

"Of course it's OK," Seri said, letting Yuffie carry the song for a few measures. "You're among friends, remember?"

Vincent nodded, remembering how but a few days prior he had hesitated to label them that. "Friends," he repeated.

For long moments they all passed this way, rotating slowly amongst each other, touching hands and shoulders while the ancient melody wove between them, knowing that for today all was well, that they were alive, and most of all, they were together.

_Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine  
I'll taste your strawberries, I'll drink your sweet wine  
A million tomorrows shall all pass away  
'ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today_

**A/N: Thanks to all who read and reviewed. **

**"Today" is an old, old song. So old that I could find no one to credit for it. **


End file.
